Regular Shaymin is certainly worse than the Regis IMO (horrible movepool, meh abilities, good but not GREAT stats). Since it is more hyped, I would aim at Regis as far as difficulty level goes. Lower than Diancie because the rock/fairy mon has certainly more perks.
Skymin is...eh. I find Mega Diancie (and Mega Lat@s) to be way way worse, but I suppose that speed and serene grace may warrant some limitations. I would do something like Almaz Mine, only with it being possible to trainers that don't have/wanna use their master balls 9_9.
Regarding the TLR itself, my first reaction was: I am not going to read all of it -_-.
But I did regardless.
It is obscenely huge. To the point of being 100% ridiculous. The run is huge as is the data. While all those options are nice and funky, it makes it really hard to read. And I thought DNA had tons of rooms -_-.
To answer the questions:
- The Structure of the TLR. What changes should we make to the structure of the TLR? Is it too long, too short, or just right?
Too Long and too...uh...spread? dunno the right word here. There are too many possibilities within possibilities. A Scenario usually can result in three different outcomes based on luck and there are a shitload of scenarios to choose from, making the end result a tad too much.
I would do as mowtom said and go Lackeys → RP1 → RP2→Guardians → RP3→RP4→Boss. I would include 1 or 2 extra RPs in case of Gracidea instead of bumping the difficulty of all encounters up, as I find it easier to control how harder I want it to be that way (although Boss and
maybe guardians should be a little bit more difficult if Gracidea).
There are too many scenarios options. I like the idea of many possibilities, but this has too many. You can probably keep the several hazards the TLR has (deducing from the number of traps as applicable) without resorting to a gazillion scenarios.
- Since this TLR was closed, a special item called the Gracidea was introduced as a way of codifying the Forme changes for Shaymin. How different should the TLR be if the player was to pick up the Gracidea? How harder should the TLR be? When should the player have the option to pick up the Gracidea? Obviously it should disappear if Skymin is not caught but yeah.
I don't see the new Gracidea as something special to be considered. If Gracidea (or whatever other item you use as trigger) is picked, you include 1 or 2 extra RPs and bump the difficulty of the Boss (
maybe the guardians too, although I'd rather not, unless you include only 1 more RP). I dunno what to compare it to, but the end result should be a tad easier than Almaz Mine HM (I was going to say "Regular Lati@s level", but then I remembered that TPF probably could use a toning down itself...). But really, apart from the 100% annoying serene grace air slash, Skymin isn't that much of a big deal, as it doesn't hit THAT hard (you can probably hit harder with most A-rank mons and their signature items), has horrible coverage and bad typing. Only bonus is speed and serene grace and even then I would probably prefer to use Togekiss as my haxer of choice.
- How difficult do you feel the pre-vamp TLR is? Too hard? Too easy? Just right? Do bear in mind that this is an Uber Level TLR which has default combination timers of 2/3 Status/Damaging.
Uh...
The sheer number of encounters made it a bit hard. I won't say "too hard", as, if I remember correctly, Lad managed to reach Skymin with a still-somewhat-alive team, which was a big deal considering it was the secret era and the TLR wasn't scouted (or scouted properly). The encounters itself (looking at you guardians) are easy and the mons are eh. The problem lies on the big number of encounters and how it is too luck based (partly due to size and partly due to it being hidden before). If you remove some of the encounters and with the newfound sunlight, the odds are that you will need to increase the power of the mons for the difficulty level to be just right. Simplying cutting fat will result in an easy TLR IMO.