"More thought needs to be put into the request for "harder difficulty/difficulty settings""

Right off the bat, I should emphasise that am not saying that these are impossible demands. Rather, I don't think a lot of people who ask for it haven't really thought through how it would work.Because it's actually kind of tricky to make a level-based game more difficult. I think most people at least recognise that there's more to it than just raising every opponent's level, since that only calls for more level grinding. There's more to it than that, though - raising opponent levels changes the experience gain of the player, too, meaning the whole level curve of the game gets shifted. This is particularly true in games like Gen V/VII that use dynamic experience models. But even then, levels aren't really the root of why Pokemon in particular has trouble being difficult.One thing that Pokemon has difficulty with, that many other JRPGs don't, is that it's a symmetrical battle system. The opponent is just another Pokemon, meaning there's a limit to its capabilities, and that your own team can always match the opponent in strength. This is also part of what makes level grinding especially difficulty-breaking in Pokemon games - it's always possible to gain a distinct advantage simply by being higher leveled than your opponent. Furthermore, Pokemon has always (until Sun and Moon) made battle numbers symmetrical. 1v1, 2v2, 3v3; the only time you're called on to battle more Pokemon than you yourself can field is in Horde Battles, in which the opponents' levels are drastically lowered to the point of not presenting a challenge at all.Sun and Moon actually took some steps towards addressing this. Totem Pokemon have buffed stats throughout the battle, and can call allies to turn the battle into a 2v1. It's no coincidence that these are some of the most difficult battles in the game.In the end, though, even these efforts were held back by the fact that they're just Pokemon. The sheer nature of Pokemon's battle system doesn't lend itself to difficulty, for two big reasons. One is that with very few exceptions, it's always possible to exploit the type matchup system - bosses can always be hit for 2x damage, because they're just Pokemon with types like any other. The other is that Pokemon health values are not made for protracted fights. Have a look at competitive battling, in which the language is mostly about OHKOs and 2HKOs. That's the nature of the game, and as long as you're only given other Pokemon with standard HP values to fight against, it's a hard limitation on the difficulty.Also, there's the fact that most of the game is built around 1v1 battling. This is a limiting factor on strategy, because you're limited to what one Pokemon can do, and you only have one action per turn. No standard JRPG party setups for you; no healers, no tank and DPS synergy, no clever combos for massive damage. Other JRPGS have unique bosses with massive HP, superpowered attacks, the ability to attack multiple times a turn, immunity to status and debuffs, you name it. Games like that let you use whole-party strategies to overcome the odds. Pokemon doesn't have that luxury.In a way, though, the current system is what best supports Pokemon's biggest draw: the insane degree of party customisation, based on which Pokemon you put in your party. This is a system that might actually suffer if the battle system was a standard multiple-members fight, because it would demand a degree of synergy between party members that could limit the number of viable choices.So what does all that mean for difficulty in Pokemon? Hopefully the obvious takeaway is that it's not as easy as it might seem to make the games harder. So what could be done?A good start might come from "making the AI better", although the fact that this is on the table only speaks to the limited AI that current games have, rather than being a sufficient solution - there are other hard limits on the battle system that would make better AI an incomplete fix.Perhaps the best thing to look at is how Sun and Moon broke some of the conventions discussed above, albeit only in small degrees. Totem Pokemon are some of the most difficult fights yet, for reasons I touched on above. For the first time, you can be pitted against two opponents to your one - and what's more, the battles were designed with team synergy in mind. Notice how the Totems that cause the most issues tend to be those with team strategies, like Wishiwashi-Alomomola (Heal Pulse, Helping Hand), Lurantis-Castform (Sunny Day - Leaf Guard/Synthesis/Solar Blade), or Mimikyu-Haunter (Sleep, exploiting the fact that you can only field one Pokemon). Compare that to "disappointing" Totems like Kommo-O, which really only tries to overpower you, making the deficiencies of level-based difficulty fully apparent: you probably outleveled him at that point, and that alone was enough to shrug off his attacks and win.Those same fights also exemplify some of the limits inherent to the battle system. Every time people praise the difficulty of Totem Wishiwashi or Lurantis, someone pops up to say they had no trouble at all - just use a bit of type advantage, it's fine. After all, even these totems only have a slight stat buff - they're still Pokemon at their core. This is part of why people thought it a missed opportunity that you never fight the fused Lusamine-Nihilego - there was a unique opportunity for the game to pit you against a non-Pokemon boss, with all the rules out the window. Too bad it never happened.So what can future games do to up the difficulty? I think it might be most productive for them to commit further to the ideas they developed in Sun and Moon.Totem Pokemon were a great step in the right direction, but how do we make a Totem Pokemon (or its equivalent in future games) more difficult to fight? I think a good start would be to trim the fat. Drop the more useless helper Pokemon like the lone Wishiwashi and Trumbeak, so that players are forced to face the planned doubles strategy. We don't want players oneshotting the totem, so why not disable Z-moves as part of the trial? Applying defensive stat boosts to the helper Pokemon might help to ensure it's harder to break their strategy too.In general, a stronger use of hold items can help. This is something they've been moving towards for a while: many boss trainers at least have Sitrus Berries, Totem Lurantis had its Power Herb for surprise instant damage, and I'd be very surprised if USUM's Totem Alolan Marowak isn't packing a Thick Club. But I think using more varied hold items, and even strategies based around them (like the Power Herb example) could be great.It would also be cool if future games could set up - and follow through on - non-Pokemon bosses, that break the standard rules of battle. Ideally, the player would have to face a few of these, in order to wrap their head around the concept of team synergy. Ultra Beasts in general were a good opportunity for this, but sadly, even they ended up just being Pokemon.But with all that said and done... at what point do we lose something for the difficulty? I've alluded to this earlier, but for many people, the big appeal of Pokemon games is the incredible degree of personalisation you can achieve with your party. People celebrated the removal of HMs because it meant you didn't need to accommodate for a Fly user and a Surf user in your party, nor did you have to leave out a desired party member in favour of an HM slave. If you make the games difficult enough that bosses almost demand a "proper" party setup, with good synergy and strategy, might that not limit the player's options? Is this a worthwhile sacrifice? I don't have these answers.Thoughts? via /r/pokemon http://ift.tt/2wKJhtP