Insane Difficulty: Pokemon RedBlue: Certainly Not Worse Edition - Insane Difficulty

If the next release is gonna be that soon, I'll wait.

Release is early, because I ran out of space in the Bank where AI is located! Wanted to more; I'll have to restructure. That'll take a while though.

I ported some code from Pokemon Crystal to make a new smart AI type. Only Sabrina, Lorelei, Agatha, and Champion are using it right now. Partially due to space issues, partially due to not being sure how I want to keep the difficulty curve. All the gym leaders have revamped moves now, so one could attempt a playthrough if one wishes.

Also, a bunch of battle bugs fixed! Substitute should properly block all status now.


Go and give the Elite Four a run if you have a save; they should surprise you once or twice I hope.

By revamped move, so you mean moves not related to their level-up set? Well, w/e, guess I'll give it a go soon. Just hack the save I've got to make things more fair and see what comes of it. Not gonna do a playthrough, just gonna see what the Elite Four have in store. Maybe hack things a bit to get some proper fights from the Gym Leaders without having to replay the whole game.

...So, why do Bruno and Lance not have smart AIs?

For the move revamp, I considered TMs and HMs as well as level up moves. In some cases, I simply chose better moves from their pool because the order some Pokemon learn things is ...less than optimal.

Burno's AI has Bug Catcher level AI in the default game. Why? Maybe as a breather before Agatha. Possibly because his Machamp had Fissure and would have spammed it against a much faster Electrode to no effect.

(As an aside, the the three types of AI in default Red/Blue are "Don't use status moves if player already has a status", "Prefer to heal and statup/down on the second turn", and "Prefer super effective hits. Discourage not very effective hits". They can be mixed and matched as desired. I added a fourth type "Prefer one of a list of moves if it would be strategic to do so. Discourage it if a reasonable player would never use said move in the current situation". I was about to add a fifth, just for Bruno that was "Discourage 0 BP moves if current pokemon is under 50% health" but I ran out of room.)

I don't think Lance needs the smart AI, because none of his mons have situational moves. Always Be Attacking.


I'd love to hear your feedback after a run-through of the Elite Four. I kept getting stuck at Agatha with a causal team. So I actually have no idea how well Champion fights!

OK, well, they looked a little more interesting, but I couldn't really tell because an equally leveled team just rolls right over them with SE moves. (Only ever got hurt because I played around with Gary's Rhydon too much). Gonna have to lower my levels down to 45 or 35 and re-fight them.

I did see Lance's Dragonite use Thunder. So, a plus for the AgiliDragon. Oh, and Lorelei and Agatha both used status moves a good deal. Agatha also used Substitute. Gary's Pidgeot used Subsitute, his Alakazam actually tried to Recover (against a Snorlax with Body Slam >_>), and Blastoise spammed a defense-up move (was on fast-forward). Oh, and Gary managed to heal his Arcanine while it was digging a hole. Hacker.

What were your Stat Exps at? I had some trouble and my average level was 55, but I used minimally trained pokemon.


Actually what was your team, if you don't mind? And if you could point out specific instances of the AI making bad plays I might be able to fix them. A video of your next run though would be awesome, but not expected in any way.

Hypno, Dragonite, Ninetales, Rhydon, Vaporeon, Snorlax. Average lvl. 55, though Hypno was 60. Decent movesets (for RBY). Stat EXP virtually non-existent across the board, but Pikasav's weird with Stat EXP so iunno. Could raise PKMN from scratch to double check behind PikaSav, but I'm pretty sure it's roughly accurate. Are Gym Badge bonuses still in play? That's a 10% boost to all stats, on top of AI not having Stat EXP. That's a really big bonus.

The problem wasn't atrocious plays like Agilinite or anything. The AI just gets wrecked by SE attacks & is very simplistic. Bruno? Everything dies to one Psychic from Hypno, and Hypno's faster than everything (Agatha ain't much better, she just delays the inevitable). Gary's Alakazam? "Well, I was nearly OHKO'd by that Rhydon's Body Slam, but I think I should try and Recover up my HP instead of attacking or switching out." Only way to solve the former is with more diverse teams with good movesets. Only way to solve the latter is by expanding cpu AI. All presuming you want the cpu to be semi-competitive with an equally leveled player.

Have you considered removing the "Shift" battle mode? It breaks the rules of PvP PKMN, and is just another mechanic in favor of the player.

Well it's not exactly fair if you've got the opponent's pokemon memorized. Doubly so if you are playing on Shift. The AI is still awful at switching, and that's probably going to take up the rest of the newly freed Bank to fix. Badge Boosts grant 9/8th stats, and I am considering giving such bonus to the opponent instead.

I imagine if you brought an overleveled Psychic type, you weren't seeing too much of the AI Did you put a lot of pokemon to sleep? Sleep lasts 0-7 turns in this gen, and I don't know how I feel about that. But, noted about trying to Recover after taking much more than 1/2 damage. Would be easy to fix in GSC, but RB doesn't track player/enemy damage separately. I'll think of something.

I'm not removing Shift battle style for the same reason I'm not fixing the trainer-fly glitch. It's easy enough to avoid.

Eh, I don't think I have the Elite Four memorized beyond the basics. Rather, Elite Four & Gym Leaders are monotype, you're told what the monotype is, and the AI doesn't understand switching. So a halfway decent selection of fast, strong PKMN with good moves will sweep them easily. Normal trainers are a little better, but routes will still favor one type over others: Water routes will have a lot of Water pkmn, Rock Tunnel has Fighting & Rock, Rockets use a lot of Poison, etc., etc.

I did use Sleep a few times. Didn't abuse it though.

I'll have at the Elite Four with a different, lower level team and see about recording it.

EDIT: Same, lower level team, because I'm lazy. Maybe just won't abuse Hypno so much, and get a better electric attack.

This post has been edited by thzfunnymzn: 13 January 2016 - 09:31 AM

Lorelei: https://www.youtube....eature=youtu.be

Comments on youtube. Swept her entire team with a Gengar ten levels lower than her team (standard fare for a pkmn game).

I almost used a more interesting AmnesiaSnorlax strategy, but I wanted an itemless win, and Lovely Kiss ruined that.

Gengar's a really, really good pkmn.

Bruno: https://www.youtube....eature=youtu.be
Bruno 2: https://youtu.be/veHh9OaZ_RY

Monotype team of low special, low base stat total dudes = sweep.

Monotype teams are real easy to handle.

Agatha comes later.

This post has been edited by thzfunnymzn: 19 January 2016 - 11:33 AM

That Gengar had some ungodly luck. A Paralyze on Slowbro and Hypnosis hit both times (I'm thinking I was right to lower the sleep timer to Stadium levels; might reapply that change.)

Bruno needs a lot of work; so for now I consider him a freebie. Very interested in an Agatha fight.

Yeah, I got some ridiculous luck. Double freeze on Bruno was lul. But still, I swept an entire Elite Four team with an underleveled pkmn with a simple strategy without using Items; from my test runs, that strategy can work with only modest luck. Kinda what I mean by monotype teams. (Could try Amnesialax, but I'd need to put Rest on him if I keep my "No Items" restriction).

I'll get around to Agatha.

Agatha: https://youtu.be/1oxwIet9GDE

There was a little luck with Hypnosis on her lvl.60 Gengar, but I've won that battle 2/2 times that I tried that strat, so it's probably decently reliable. Otherwise, Gengar continues to single handedly defeat the world's strongest trainers. Outspeeding higher level Gengars and surviving Psychics from them too. (Stat EXP and Badge Bonuses at work. It's really quite ridiculous).

OTOH, when I didn't attempt Hypnosis, Gengar butchered me because I refused to use Items to heal sleep (and didn't switch enough when Confused). How does sleep work in later gens? I've heard it's really OP in gen 1.

Haunter tries to Dream Eat me while I'm clearly awake. Gotta fix that. Also, Arbok's Wrap attempt will need fixing.

Next time: someone besides Gengar!

thzfunnymzn, on 20 January 2016 - 07:23 PM, said:

I think in later Gens, you have a set amount of turns to wake up (1-4 for Gens III and IV, 1-3 for Gens V (the counter does reset) and VI). The way it works in Gen 1 is it can last from 1-7 turns. The counter for it does not reset when switched out.

Ahh. Thanks. Yeah, that's a big difference, esp. the "doesn't reset upon switch" deal. Also noticed that you can't make a move on the turn you wake up (probably the main reason behind Agatha's Gengar sweeping my team; that, and I'm pretty sure the AI cheats and "knows" what will happen in the upcoming turn). I guess it might be best to switch over to Stadium's 1-3 turns and being able to move the turn you wake up.

ALL of your Hypnosis attempts succeeded. I'm definitely taking you to Vegas if I go.

I'm pretty sure Sleep is actually 0 to 6 in Gen 1, as you can wake up on the same turn you were sleep'd if your opponent is faster. I am definitely going to go back to Stadium rules for sleep.

The trainer AI actually makes it's move as soon as the second Pokemon's health bar starts animating (as I found out during an HP corruption bug.) One of the reasons I went back to 0-6 was because Agatha kept missing her Dream Eaters against slower pokemon, as they had a 25% chance to wake up immediately.

But yes, it seems lowering Sleep timer will prevent massive sweeps on both sides.

I think Haunter's Dream Eater snafu was because you didn't update (hopefully). The check to suppress it was bugged and not working. I'll double check it and get back to you.

That Wrap tho... I guess missing and doing 0 damage are not the same thing! Who knew. ..Actually does that happen in original? I mean, it's not INcorrect behavior. (Maybe it's a feature, not a bug!)

lol at the Vegas comment. Was wondering if maybe things were rigged in the players' favor or something. Don't some pkmn games do that?

95% positive I'm using the most up-to-date version. If your double check turns up otherwise, I'll double check.

The Wrap thing kinda needs to go. It doesn't really hurt anything, but it's kinda annoying to wait 3 turns just to get back to the battle. Hilarious the first time though.

Crushed Lance on a test run, lost to Gary's last pkmn (Blastoise). Gotta watch out for Dragonite's Thunder though. Vaporeon no likey.

Hm, you got a timeframe on fixing Sleep? If it's something you plan to do quickly, I'll wait on Lance & Gary. Otherwise, I'll proceed ahead. Then again, probably doesn't matter for Lance.

Sure, I can throw that out right now.

Go ahead and grab it, it's out now.

This post has been edited by MechanicalPen: 24 January 2016 - 03:28 PM

Cool.