What "Quit Moment" made you drop a large Pokemon Fangame/Hack?

[SuperSpyroDragon64]

You're all familiar with "Quit Moments" as Josh Strife Hayes once talked about, right?


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhQ_jKFnFSU


Maybe the game was unpolished, full of typos and bad grammar and clumsily characterized one-note cliches that go nowhere. Maybe it was a level curve that ordered you to start grinding for EXP, cash, or Game Corner coins before you're allowed to progress. Maybe it was an overly long unskippable cutscene with unbearably obnoxious characters. Maybe it was a poorly designed early-game forest/cave route full of empty space, uninteresting space-filling paths, bad balancing, and puzzle design that thinks time wasted equals difficulty, with opponents that don't make you think until you hit level 40, if ever.

Maybe it was losing a dragged-out unfun battle against blatantly cheating opponents only for your victory to be ignored by the game deciding you lost anyway, or for RNG to ruin your day and force you to lose, making you endure an absurdly long run (or worse, walk) back from the game's starting location before you can make it back to where you were due to a lack of healing locations.

Maybe you started a game and felt 2-3 hours of Tackle/Scratch grinding your starter against Harden-spamming bugs and Tackle-spamming Rattata and other nonchallenging powerless uninteresting nonthreatening time-consuming enemies wasn't worth it. Maybe it was some dialogue or story event egregiously horrible enough to make you reach for the Alt and F4 keys and shift+delete the whole folder from your hard drive.

Maybe the Pokemon Essentials game was designed to crash if Cheat Engine was opened to SpeedHack the game, and the Rom was edited to crash or screw the player over if you decided to use any classic time-savers like rare candies. Maybe the game felt it was entitled to too much of your time for what it was, seemed to think you have all the time in the world to lose, and that caused you to decide it's not worth another second.

What "Quit Moments" in Pokemon Fangames and Romhacks caused you to drop them?

 

[-FL-]

I believe that I only quitted a game once. In 2011, there are few complete games, so I was playing one made by a very, very rookie dev. So, the tileset and progression is a mess. The third gym leader uses a Zapdos! But what made me quit was a very big cave who I need Flash, but I don't have flash. I finish the cave once, but, I didn't rember if a trainer beats me or I jump the wrong ledge, then I need to finish the cave again. This was too much for me, so I quit.

I almost quitted three games:

1. Pokémon Universal, since one of first battle, with a lv5 starter was against a level 7 Skarmory if I remember correctly.
2. The First Journey has few healing points a good part of game, so it isn't a single moment.
3. Red's Journey to West was the first two bosses being too hard.

These 3 are examples of Early Game Hell. All was amended in new versions of these games.

Tip: I believe that your text will be a lot nicer to read with a list rather than a huge paragraph.

 

[Aki]

For me my 'quit moment' is most often when the early game has too much grinding. Now I'm a slow player who will just run back to the pokemon center for a free heal after every trainer battle, but my patience runs out when I can't get off the first route because of either the number of trainers, or if I'm just not able to train anything. If a game feels unfair or frustrating in the first hour, I'm not gonna stick around to see if it gets better.

I have quit a fangame later on though; I had to look up a walkthrough at multiple points in order to figure out where to go and what to do next and finally decided it was too much work. The issue was I kept running into roadblocks but couldn't tell if it was an endgame thing (Think the guy standing outside of Cerulean Cave), an HM I needed to find first, a story thing I needed to unlock, or something that would dissappear when I got my next badge.

 

[SuperSpyroDragon64]

Sometimes I wonder, why don't more players try Pokemon Colosseum and realize the early game is so much better when you let players start at lv20ish with interesting moves like Helping Hand, and take away early game garbage like Rattata/Pidgey and Tackle/Scratch spamming?

unclear roadblocks

That's why every roadblock should make what's connected to it clear. If there's a NPC in the way, the NPC should say something like "We've been ordered to keep this bridge closed until the Team Rocket grunts we're hunting down in Insert Town Name Here are found and jailed". And if the roadblock is a fallen tree or rockslide, a nearby NPC should hint at what the roadblock is connected to. "We won't have enough men to clear this rockslide until Insert Town Name Here has had all its problems solved".

 

[nomists]

I quit Pokemon Vega after I beat the Elite 4. That hack is notoriously grindy and has an extensive post-game that contains half of its fakemon and then a super special elite four all at level 100. Even though this post-game had a lot of stuff, I wasn't about to re-explore a land I just finished grinding through to get under-leveled new Pokemon that I would then have to raise up to level 100 again. It was too much.

Grind is a serious issue. The more I do game dev, the more I value the player's spent time more than my own dev time. I would rather spend 10 hours making an amazing 30 seconds of gameplay moreso than banging out another forgettable dungeon that takes 5-10 minutes of gameplay.

Sometimes I wonder, why don't more players try Pokemon Colosseum and realize the early game is so much better when you let players start at lv20ish with interesting moves like Helping Hand, and take away early game garbage like Rattata/Pidgey and Tackle/Scratch spamming?

Personally, I find the best starting move set to be Metronome and only Metronome with 40 pp. But I realize not everyone may share my taste.

 

[TreadingWater]

For me, I can absolutely push past frustrating gameplay if the story is engaging enough and the pay-off is sufficient enough.

Reborn may be hard as balls and throws some really difficult challenges your way due to the various systems at play, but I was so invested that I came back time after time just to see where it was going. And even thought I was put off by a…certain scene in Chapter 3 (the one on the bridge, if you know you know) the first time I played during v17 due to what at the time felt like simply shoving in a really sensitive topic just for shock-value, the full v19 release (as well as generally having a better idea of what I was doing) gave more context and made me care about the character enough that I could see the steps that drove him to that point.

What usually makes me stop playing is when the games fail to provide a strong story-hook that keeps me invested in the game and it’s world, just expecting me to keep going from town to town just because that is what you’re supposed to do in a Pokemon-game.
Not to shame anyone since I know all too well that not every fangame-developer can be proficient in every single area of development, but sometimes you can really tell when all the time and effort was put into having as many areas and Pokemon as possible as opposed to actually writing a story that brings everything together.

Shattered Light was a game that I was curious about but ultimately dropped because barely anything had happened by the time I got to the fifth gym. There was barely any interesting characters and the villains were just nameless grunts with no memorable commanders or even a plan that the player can follow. The fact that it also has 10+ encounters in each area, making finding the pokemon you actually want let alone one with the right ability or nature, didn’t make it any better.

 

[SuperSpyroDragon64]

Is the most obvious sign of a developer who never listens to feedback when way too many Pokemon are stuffed into a low number of encounters, when EXP gain isn't boosted beyond canon Pokemon(as if we all have endless hours to spend grinding on every romhack/fangame), or when levels are artificially inflated over the player's level and far over the levels of local wild Pokemon? I think the latter is a huge sign that the developer doesn't value the player's time and doesn't know how to make trainers challenging without just cranking up the most obvious visible number. Good held items can be negated with Knock Off/Trick/Thief/Pickpocket. Rapid Spin can beat Spikes. Weather can beat Weather. But raising the level means I raise my level, which isn't interesting. At best, levels are an unintrusive part of the gaming experience, and at worst, they harm it by mattering. Sure, battles are more interesting when you have more move options. But if you expect me to grind, I expect you to accept that I don't have the time for that. Add an infinite use Rare Candy Key Item that won't let you overlevel. Or documentation/signs to tell you the level you're meant to get to with grinding/candies. Make Pokemon gain 0 exp from facing Pokemon of the same level or lower and 5x or more for beating Pokemon of a higher level.

The harder a Pokemon game tries to be, and the higher the consequences for failure, the more unfair it becomes when pure dumb luck ruins your run. Games should not have random miss chances, random crit chances, or random chances to activate game-changing extra effects. Somebody can just get lucky with Ancientpower and sweep. Someone can miss four 90% accurate attacks in a row and lose through no fault of their own. BrightPowder can cheat you out of wins. RNG can give you undeserved wins, or undeserved losses. People will call it fair if they're used to it, or if they don't want to admit wins handed to them on a silver platter by RNG were illegitimate. But it's more than possible to balance OP moves with PP instead of accuracy and remove PP Max/PP Ups. The strategy for winning a Pokemon battle should never be "pray for good RNG".

Nobody would praise a puzzle game with the same approach to designing puzzles. How do you get past the spider web puzzle? Pick B and pray for RNGesus to smile upon you.

 

[safr]

1.when they put dynamax i kinda short give up for a while not touching the game i mean what the use of dynamax if i cant enjoy the gigantic pokemon that cant be pictured by rpg maker the reason dynamax is not only for gameplay but also for the eyes, so yeah unneeded mechanic

2. the story too edgy is another reason

 

[mindbender12]

Unnecessarily difficult level curve. Your first gym shouldn’t be level 20 unless there’s a lot of build up, and if that’s the case, pacing is all wrong. I dropped Rejuvenation I believe because of this very issue.

 

[SuperSpyroDragon64]

Unnecessarily difficult level curve. Your first gym shouldn’t be level 20 unless there’s a lot of build up, and if that’s the case, pacing is all wrong. I dropped Rejuvenation I believe because of this very issue.

You know what game had a great first gym? Pokemon Run And Bun. They changed the plot so you don't fight Roxanne until after you've visited many other areas you'd normally visit after her, letting you get more encounters during Nuzlockes.

They also had a great Levelling system. You could level your Pokemon with infinite candies freely, but Rare Candies were made interesting. They were turned into a limited resource, they could let you break the level cap, and you'd often need to face dangerous optional trainers to get them. Many Pokemon had great evolutions or moves one level after the current level cap. So you had to ask yourself... Is it worth spending a Rare Candy for an advantage here, a temporary one, that might hurt your ability to get past a challenging foe later?

Level fundamentally isn't interesting. But this game made that system interesting. I wish it wasn't the norm to spend many years or more on one game, it keeps you from taking inspiration from any good ideas in other games made in those many years. And if you spend... say... ten years on one game, what if your opening was made while you were still new to writing and game design, and it turns out bad, while all your recently made content is post-game content?

 

[Willøw]

I think the only one that made me stop was Pokémon Wish, a Rom hack that was well done but parts of it are poorly explained.
Half of the things I had to go through the map and NPC to understand where to go or what to do, I spent half an hour just trying to find the right way to progress in the story because the game itself didn't tell me where to go, besides that there are some cutscenes that I think are kind of irrelevant and boring.
I would even make a comparison to Unbound but it would be unfair, because Unbound is one of the best Rom Hacks I've ever played​

 

[WanderingTrainer]

Pokemon Reborn: Getting dicked out of badge 3 and having to chase some guy around and do another tedious backtracking side treck

POkemon Insurgence: Level 25 Celebi in a mandatory must win rival fight (doubly annoying because story wise NOTHING IS AT STAKE AND YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO PROGRESS THE STORY EVEN IF YOU LOSE) with few mons available. Are you ****ing kidding me?

That one with the edgy cults: Giratina battle before the 4th gym (and its 6-6 double battle). Like come on.

Pokemon Sunday: That crappy chase sequence.

POkemon Blossom of the Soul: Compulsory dousing mini game badly setup

Pokemon Tails of the OUtskirt Stand: This game is ****Ing awesome but the first post game boss feels a bit of a spike even if I get why. Maybe ill go back to it but im not sure there's much post game content and the final boss was tough enough. Despite its place on this list its still one of, if not my fav poke fangame of all time

 

[FairLadyBellaphram]

To be fair this was partially on me and I still may pick the game back up later.
I went into a blind playthrough of Dimension Defenders where there is a Kartana in the first gym after a pretty standard and easy early game; It wiped my whole team and losing caused my game to crash, and my last save was right after getting my starter T^T Haven't touched it for over a month now. I've played romhacks with bs bosses but usually I'm expecting something ridiculous so it's not so bad.

Now that I think of it, there's also one I played called Empyrean, it had a plot about people fusing with pokemon and IIRC the final boss was the main villain fused with a rayquaza? I think it was level 100 and had 2 phases? At least the version of the game I was playing you were locked in the room with the fight once you started it and losing just booted you back to that same room. I had a full team of 100s but I just could not beat it. That was years ago though so my memory is a little bit fuzzy.

 

[drawntoast]

Pokemon Reborn: Getting dicked out of badge 3 and having to chase some guy around and do another tedious backtracking side treck

POkemon Insurgence: Level 25 Celebi in a mandatory must win rival fight (doubly annoying because story wise NOTHING IS AT STAKE AND YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO PROGRESS THE STORY EVEN IF YOU LOSE) with few mons available. Are you ****ing kidding me?

That one with the edgy cults: Giratina battle before the 4th gym (and its 6-6 double battle). Like come on.

Pokemon Sunday: That crappy chase sequence.

POkemon Blossom of the Soul: Compulsory dousing mini game badly setup

Pokemon Tails of the OUtskirt Stand: This game is ****Ing awesome but the first post game boss feels a bit of a spike even if I get why. Maybe ill go back to it but im not sure there's much post game content and the final boss was tough enough. Despite its place on this list its still one of, if not my fav poke fangame of all time

Wait, I'm actually the guy that made Blossom of the Soul. Was that section really that bad? I guess I know what to change when I get to re-releasing that game.

 

[mikethemaster2012]

Grueling gold hate when a game make it we're you can't use items in battle plus the battles are had as hell.