ROM Hack Pokémon Compass - A Scarlet/Violet Overhaul

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What is Pokémon Compass?

Compass is an overhaul designed to be a vanilla-enhanced experience for Scarlet and Violet focusing on the following:

• Smoother progression through the main stories
• Generally increased difficulty in trainer battles and post-game battles
• Revamped raids and raid rewards
• Wider selection of Pokémon both in the wild and added to raids

Quality of Life features are included to smooth out some of what we consider to be design deficiencies, or just to make exploration a little bit nicer, giving better access to EV items, evolution items, recovery consumables, etc.

Overall, Compass 2.x is a major departure from the 1.x series as we're now able to modify Scarlet/Violet's Lua code to change or implement our own functions as necessary and have a significantly deeper understanding of how the scene files operate within the game as well.


Feature Documentation
Download

Complementary Compass Tools

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Raid Primer
Information on making informed decisions for Pokémon, moves, items, matchup considerations, and quite a lot more based around Compass' post-game 6★ and 7★ raids.

Raid Log
A log of the dev solo completions of the post-game 6★ and 7★ raids.
Contains strategies, potential counter-picks, moveset choices, and shows a wide variety of Pokémon are capable of completing these challenges.

Habitat Finder
Uses the spawn and habitat data from the current version of Compass to allow searching for where Pokémon can spawn.

Area Encounters List
Lists all of the available Pokemon in a given region.

Primary Features

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• A Trainer & Gym overhaul that manually reworks all 387 encounters and allies
• Tougher Titan fights with new ally partner Pokémon
• Tougher Team Star scenarios
• Higher difficulty and max level repeatable post-game tournament and Team Star rematches
• Removal of all version-exclusive Pokémon and raids, including the box legendaries, allowing all Pokémon to be obtained in-game
• Higher levels for wild Pokémon
• 35 new symbol encounters added into the world
• New evolution methods and items used for no-trade and version-specific evolutions
• All currently-available HOME Pokémon have been added into the game, including all the legendaries, mythicals, and alternate and regional forms
• New evolution methods to gain regional variants have been included
• A functional Pokédex with entries for the HOME, Regional, and newly-added Pokémon
• Raid overhaul touching on every raid for increased difficulty, reward, or encounters
• 217 new raids added for many HOME Pokémon, including high-challenge mythical and special legendary fights
• Special "event" raids for acquisition of rare or transfer-only forms
• Raid Ally Overhaul for better NPC support during Raids, replacing all existing 52 allies
• Adding new Raid Ally tiers to make the allies more meaningful at all stages of the game, adding in 36 new trainers for late-game and post-game raids
• Revamped raid levels and appearance rates for more consistent challenge and fewer low-ranked raids in the endgame
• Wholly overhauled raid loot rewards with completely custom loot tables, with a particular focus on better team growth and training items
• Reworked hidden item loot tables for every applicable zone in the game
• Modified Poké Mart and Delibird Presents shops
• Shiny Lock Removal
• Support for English, French, German, and Spanish languages

Quality of Life Features

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• EV / IV stats are now displayed in-game on the Pokemon status screen..
• Synchro Machine usability usable everywhere.
• Custom map and map labels for more-clear progression direction
• A custom sandwich buff shop that sells a variety of buffs for each type
• Unlocked TM list available to purchase from the start
• Improved picnic for faster eggs
• Slightly increased message speed to reduce some of the sluggishness of combat

And honestly, a whole lot more.
Check out the feature documentation for the full list of modifications.
We've changed a few things. Seriously, it's 60 pages long.[/SPOILER]

Latest Version

Version 2.0.6.0 - 100% Base game, DLC1, and DLC2 reworked
Check out our Changelog for a full breakdown of this update.

2.x Update Major Highlights

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Synchro Anywhere

Once unlocked, the Synchro Machine can be used anywhere that you can use Let's Go mode. Even outside the Terarium.

Revamped Raid Allies

Raid allies have been completely reworked from beginning to end.

• Compass now includes five tiers of raid allies, up from three that vanilla originally had, resulting in 36 new raid allies added.
• The level distribution of raid allies has been changed to account for the new tiers.
• All 52 existing raid allies have had their partner Pokémon completely reworked, with updated stat progression, wholly new movesets, Abilities, Held Items, etc.
• The general strength and capability of the raid allies has been increased slightly, by providing a bit more utility compared to before.
  You can find the complete breakdown of new Pokémon and their general strength (stats and levels, etc.) by going to the updated section of the documentation: Ally Raid Overhaul

Wild Vivillon Forms

Despite GameFreak's update to prevent this we've modified the game's Lua to allow for wild Vivillons of all forms to spawn once again.

No longer will we have to just look at the Fancy ones. (Or use to Pokémon Go to get alternate forms.)

New Symbol Encounters

35 new static encounters have been added to the world, with behavior files included so they are integrated into the world properly, sometimes with behavior more unique to the environment they were placed in or with the idea in mind when creating these encounters.

• Most are new Tera encounters, but not all of them are — Some of them are particularly special for other reasons, such as being a rare form, or just otherwise "particularly rare".
• Many are slated for endgame and have high potential for IVs, and a high catch level. Others are also "strong" but meant more for progression, and can include some things like egg and TM moves.
• You can find a few of these in places like towns as well. These roam around in specific areas in specific ways~

Titan Adjustments

We've decoupled the Titan's second fight form with the catchable Former Titan and no longer have to worry about the catchable one basically being a version of the second boss fight.
As such, the Titans have seen significant adjustments befitting their titles.

Arven has also gotten some adjustments in this regard. He now brings along three appropriately themed Pokémon to the fights.

Box Legendary Respawning

The Miraidon/Koraidon event fight now respawns once per day and can be recaptured.

Wandering Wild Pokémon

Wild Pokémon no longer disappear when you step into a town or in some Pokécenters.

• Some Pokémon can spawn inside of the town, usually around trees or along the edges of the town.
• You can also fight and catch them in town.
• Some wild Pokémon may also chase you into town!

Misc. Lua Changes

Addressing certain aspects of the game's Lua code to correct weird placement bugs for double battles, bypassing the anti-Vivillon alternate form spawn code, and updating the nushi spawners to use new data.

Screenshots

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A Word on Difficulty

Compass isn't, strictly speaking, a difficulty overhaul.

While the changes to the trainers and other major fights will result in an increase in difficulty, this is not strictly for the purpose of creating "high difficulty".
We avoid requiring cheese strats and constant, trudging, uphill-both-ways designs in favor of measured progression and pushback.

It does not give every trainer max stats and competitive teams from the beginning, for example; the prevailing design principle is the idea that the difficulty should increase as you progress through the game consistently, so that as you are provided with more opportunity for building a strong team, so too will the fights against you become tougher.

The intention is to create a smoother sense of progression from beginning to end and on through post-game with some amount of increased challenge throughout your journey.

Differences between SV+ and Compass

It's been asked repeatedly in a few places as to the differences between SV+ and Compass as they were released on the same day so I had Kas write up a brief overview.

Spoiler: Here's a breakdown of the major differences between SV+ and Compass:

TL;DR:
Compass is a complete overhaul designed to be a vanilla-enhanced experience focusing on a smoother progression curve through the main stories and post-game.

SV+ is a vanilla-like experience with features focusing on improved player experience (faster overworld movement, faster eggs, etc).

Both change trainers

Compass manually reworks every trainer in the game, giving them new and/or more Pokémon, new movesets, IV and EV distribution, improved AI functions, and held items. And around 25% of the encounters in Compass are Doubles battles.

SV+ uses vanilla trainer teams, moves, AI, etc., and applies a flat 40% multiplier across the board to trainer levels.

Both change raids

Compass overhauls nearly every raid in the game and adds 210+ new standard and event raids including mythicals, legendaries, alternate forms, and special post-game challenge raids. Also adds event raids which range from 4★ to 7★. Raid loot has been completely revamped.

SV+ adds all legendaries, mythicals, paradox Pokémon, and alternate forms to new 5★ raids. Raid loot includes additional Tera Shards along side the vanilla drops.

Both add HOME Pokémon into the wild

Pokémon that can be found in Scarlet/Violet and HOME are obtainable via the inclusion of customized versions of Team Seri's Expanded Wild Pokemon mod, which brings in all of the HOME Pokémon into the game while also removing version exclusives and adding evolution methods to get regional versions and the like.

Compass takes this further by adding Pokédex entries, IDs, habitats, and Dex images, and including behaviors so every added Pokémon interacts with the player and the world and is fully integrated.

Both mods do allow every Pokémon to be obtained, including alternate and regional forms.

Overall

Compass may suit you if you're wanting an overhauled and fresh experience that's more progression-oriented, with gradually ramping difficulty, and almost entirely all new raids.

SV+ may suit you if you're wanting a more vanilla-like experience with changes to the player experience, higher level trainers, and new additional raids.