Yom

Are certain dungeon's floors only expanded after progressing through the story or something? Or are Doors in dungeons now random in its appearance rate/floor location? Currently at Mt Horn during the Guild Expedition, and found a key on Floor 10. Considering Floor 10 is just the right half of Floor 5, I assumed there must be a secret passage to get to the middle of the floor, blocked by a Door. But even after combing through Floors 11~15(?), I didnt see anything noticeable to use the Key on. Decided to soft reset and check out every previous floor just in case, but still couldnt find anything. So basically: Did I miss a hint or are the hidden items/door just unavailable yet?

Knowing that its designed with Manual mode in mind helps. Cause I won't have to worry about eventually trivializing the game later by using it. After playing with Manual Mode, Hardcore got a lot more manageable even without a good 2 range move on either the MC or my Partner. The biggest problem I had before was how much juking you'd need to avoid getting pot shotted to half health by a rando with QuickAttack/BulletPunch/WaterGun/whatever. But actively using Manual Mode makes the positioning puzzle to avoid that a whooooooole lot more manageable. Plus, now I have 2 actions to make use of the bag compared to 1 on Auto. Which is a HUGE difference maker (and one of the many reasons I banned Manual Mode at first) Certain items not dropping as often outside of certain dungeons is taking me some time to get used to, though. Room-wide status Orbs, Oran Berries, and Max Elixirs being the one I've been really aching for lately. Gotta make a short list of places to farm them in mind All that said, I very much appreciate the overall design and challenge of this hack though. Really feels like I can sink my teeth into the mechanical meat of these games with this difficulty

I'm currently just past Drowzee and still havent ate any of my Gummies and Nectars yet, so this is good to know Is EXP so important when enemy levels and stats scale off of your team's highest levelled pokemon anyways? The only status move I have right now is Disable on Ralts, while my only 2 range option is Shadow Sneak on Ralts too (who is my partner. Not MC). So I've been having difficulty dealing with enemies with ranged STAB moves, since I can't reliably deal with them before they get 1 or 2 hits in (while I usually die in 2 hits) I'm currently trying to play while banning Manual Mode, cause I grew up without it. But if the difficulty is designed with it in mind, then I'll reconsider it

Just started playing the hack, and got my butt kicked on Hardcore. Is this difficulty designed to make you optimize your MC and Partner from the get go, or is it expected for you to reset like 5+ times just to get one clear of an exploration run? Felt like early game enemies were too strong and too numerous for a random team of Cubone + Ralts to reliably clear a dungeon without a bag full of status items (which I dont have) Edit: Ah, please don't take this as me complaining about the difficulty's design though. I'm more curious about the intent and thought process behind how you designed this and how I should be approaching it. Expert felt too easy, while Hardcore felt too much than what Im usually comfortable with. So I'd like some pointers to find a nice balance in difficulty