Pokémon Sword and Shield Spoiler Discussion

[NegativeExponents-]

24 minutes ago, Dai said:

Also, an ass-backwards explanation on exp share being mandatory:

Except the people that use the exp share are incentivized largely to use fewer Pokemon, not the other way around.

I don't understand their decisions to take away options. Like, ok, most people had it turned on but that still means there were people who liked the challenge of not over-leveling or maybe trying to easily EV train one pokemon at a time without ruining the rest and needing to farm berries or whatever their reasons were for leaving it off.

How much is "most" anyway? He didn't even share any sort of data on it. If it was like 55% that's still screwing over a significant 45% players. Actually how can I even trust that this "most players have it turned on" argument is real if they can't provide the data to back up their claims?

[Dai]

19 minutes ago, NegativeExponents- said:

I don't understand their decisions to take away options. Like, ok, most people had it turned on but that still means there were people who liked the challenge of not over-leveling or maybe trying to easily EV train one pokemon at a time without ruining the rest and needing to farm berries or whatever their reasons were for leaving it off.

How much is "most" anyway? He didn't even share any sort of data on it. If it was like 55% that's still screwing over a significant 45% players. Actually how can I even trust that this "most players have it turned on" argument is real if they can't provide the data to back up their claims?

I don’t know. Chances are they probably haven’t kept track of it.

I’m hearing of another cut. I’ve seen the gym leaders, at least half of them...but I’m hearing nothing of the Elite Four, and instead seeing stuff that says they’ve been cut. Anybody k ow if there’s any truth to this?

[NegativeExponents-]

20 minutes ago, Dai said:

I don’t know. Chances are they probably haven’t kept track of it.

I’m hearing of another cut. I’ve seen the gym leaders, at least half of them...but I’m hearing nothing of the Elite Four, and instead seeing stuff that says they’ve been cut. Anybody k ow if there’s any truth to this?

Yeah, that's been confirmed by the leaker a while ago. I don't remember the details but I believe instead of the elite four you instead challenge all the gym leaders again and then your rivals and finally the champion.

[Dai]

Just now, NegativeExponents- said:

Yeah, that's been confirmed by the leaker a while ago. I don't remember the details but I believe instead of the elite four you instead challenge all the gym leaders again and then your rivals and finally the champion.

I’m going to assume that it won’t be back-to-back for most of them, which...I don’t know about this one. At least there’s SOMETHING.

[NegativeExponents-]

4 minutes ago, Dai said:

I’m going to assume that it won’t be back-to-back for most of them, which...I don’t know about this one. At least there’s SOMETHING.

I don't know if it's back-to-back or not. I actually don't have any opinions about it yet. I'll wait and see until the game comes out for there to be footage of it before judging it. I don't think it's a necessarily bad change, just depends on the execution.

[Dai]

1 hour ago, NegativeExponents- said:

I don't know if it's back-to-back or not. I actually don't have any opinions about it yet. I'll wait and see until the game comes out for there to be footage of it before judging it. I don't think it's a necessarily bad change, just depends on the execution.

Agreed, but it still feels weird.

I’d like to add that I expect the games to, much like previous games (LGPE included), still have all data for the cut Pokemon, Mega Stones, Z-Crystals, and items in them that aren’t otherwise available, because Game Freak likes to copy+Paste their code throughout the entries. Let’s see if datamining proves me theory correct.

 

Edit: Forgot to mention, Japan only just found out that Pokemon were being cut through leaks. GameFreak didn’t even tell them.

Edited November 10, 2019 by Dai

[Shrimpica]

[NegativeExponents-]

double post

Edited November 10, 2019 by NegativeExponents-
double post

[NegativeExponents-]

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lfGbLUI-iKg

Stream of the game if anyone is interested

Edit: welp, should have posted this earlier cause it's down now

Didn't watch a lot but here's some notes, can't skip the catching tutorial like they said so that was a lie, legendary appears early on in the forest but is scripted event and you can't catch or hurt it. Early routes were linear, like a straight up line. So many damn cutscenes and probably more handholding than Sun and Moon was.

Oh yes and how could I forget, the extensive use of fog in the forest was awful too. Looked like a n64 game trying to hide it's bad draw distance

Edited November 10, 2019 by NegativeExponents-

[Shrimpica]

18 minutes ago, NegativeExponents- said:

can't skip the catching tutorial

[Anacybele]

Uh, I heard you CAN skip the catching tutorial.

Also, that comic is so insulting. Just because someone may be excited for the games doesn't make them stupid.

Edited November 10, 2019 by Anacybele

[Dai]

21 minutes ago, NegativeExponents- said:

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lfGbLUI-iKg

Stream of the game if anyone is interested

Edit: welp, should have posted this earlier cause it's down now

Didn't watch a lot but here's some notes, can't skip the catching tutorial like they said so that was a lie, legendary appears early on in the forest but is scripted event and you can't catch or hurt it. Early routes were linear, like a straight up line. So many damn cutscenes and probably more handholding than Sun and Moon was.

Oh yes and how could I forget, the extensive use of fog in the forest was awful too. Looked like a n64 game trying to hide it's bad draw distance

Jesus, seriously? Come on, I know the game's for kids, but seriously, this is ridiculous.

1 minute ago, Anacybele said:

Uh, I heard you CAN skip the catching tutorial.

As did I, but if the video contradicted this, then someone stated wrong, unless the player did something that made the game think he needed the tutorial.

[NegativeExponents-]

3 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Uh, I heard you CAN skip the catching tutorial.

The stream literally just showed you couldn't skip it.

 

1 minute ago, Dai said:

As did I, but if the video contradicted this, then someone stated wrong, unless the player did something that made the game think he needed the tutorial.

I heard you need to catch a pokemon before the tutorial to skip it but I don't think catching pokemon was even an option until AFTER the tutorial

[Dai]

10 minutes ago, NegativeExponents- said:

The stream literally just showed you couldn't skip it.

 

I heard you need to catch a pokemon before the tutorial to skip it but I don't think catching pokemon was even an option until AFTER the tutorial

search every nook and cranny to find an invisible pokeball and don't fail with it, I guess.

[Anacybele]

14 minutes ago, NegativeExponents- said:

The stream literally just showed you couldn't skip it.

As someone just pointed out, you have to catch a Pokemon beforehand. That's what I heard. Also, I can't see the stream now, it's been taken down. Copies of the game were pirated, that's why they've been taken down. Serves them right for breaking the law.

 

[NegativeExponents-]

16 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

As someone just pointed out, you have to catch a Pokemon beforehand. That's what I heard. Also, I can't see the stream now, it's been taken down. Copies of the game were pirated, that's why they've been taken down. Serves them right for breaking the law.

 

No one's pirating. The game hasn't been dumped yet. Otherwise we would have datamine out now.

The game just broke street date and people got a hold of those early copies

[Anacybele]

3 minutes ago, NegativeExponents- said:

No one's pirating. The game hasn't been dumped yet. Otherwise we would have datamine out now.

The game just broke street date and people got a hold of those early copies

Then I guess this is a mistake or lie? Because I haven't seen anything that says otherwise.

[NegativeExponents-]

2 hours ago, Anacybele said:

Then I guess this is a mistake or lie? Because I haven't seen anything that says otherwise.

Well I'm glad to proven wrong then. Hopefully someone starts the datamining soon.

Edit: So someone did a comparison between this tree that appeared on stream

To the n64 tree we've seen a million times already and it's the same tree

They felt so confident in the n64 tree that it appears in more than one place lol

Also, new stream if anyone is interested

https://www.smashcast.tv/ak2007

Edit 2: ok that was such a joke. Dynamax at start of battle and beat the gym leader by spamming the same move 3 times. Even Brock or Falkner can kick ass if you don't come prepared.

Edited November 10, 2019 by NegativeExponents-

[Interdimensional Observer]

On 11/8/2019 at 1:23 PM, Dai said:

Hopefully this backlash amounts to something, and TPC starts taking to heart the necessary steps to better help GF make quality titles, particularly since I’m hearing rumors that a lot of issues are TPC’s fault and GF is taking a bit of the fall.

TPC is only responsible for licensing Pokemon games and marketing them, it does not seem to have "game development" in its portfolio. I do not know if any of its top employees have game development experience.

We should not excuse GF entirely, certainly TPC can't have been controlling everything they've done wrong for S&S and prior Gens. The idea of non-developers demanding games be put out at a rapid pace, without any notion of what is necessary for quality, having its demands carried out by a dev team that has been creaking with age. It's a pretty notion, regardless of accuracy.

 

One must just hope for a turnaround, it isn't inevitable, but it's possible. I recently read a little article on how after Walt Disney's death in the early 1960s(?), his namesake company began to decline. It took risks in the 80s for things to start a small recovery, but it wasn't until the early 90s with a certain half-fish that Disney's animated movies returned to their modern glory. And, I read someone saying that Pixar has been through a decade of stagnation that the company is only now trying to reverse. Too many years of safe sequels to their inspired originals has made the parent of Toy Story's light fade.

-Given Game Freak is just as incapable of dying, and home to an iconic gaming franchise, perhaps it too shall see a restoration to ascendance eventually? 

Edited November 10, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[NegativeExponents-]

11 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

-Given Game Freak is just as incapable of dying, and home to an iconic gaming franchise, perhaps it too shall see a restoration to ascendance eventually? 

Welp, if Disney is anything to go by then it'll take forever for that to happen. Someone tag me in 30 years when pokemon is back to its former glory.

Although I doubt Disney, especially in that era, had such a large supply vocal defenders like Gamefreak does so it probably felt the need to push itself to become better and succeed. Meanwhile I feel like GF will just get worse and worse while people still eat up their products because of Pokemon branding.

Hopefully I'm wrong though. The game hasn't come out yet and neither have the reviews so maybe they may actually fail or at least recieve harsh criticism from more than just the hardcore fans and GF will be forced to rethink their lazy ways.

[Flere210]

Imo they just need to abbandon the 1 game per year model. The ideas are there, many new pokemons and new moves are great addictions, and the sport theme  of Galar seems interesting and fitting. They just need to take their time to make quality content instead of cutting so many corners to get the game out ASAP. And stop whit the Arceusdamned Kanto pandering, but we are in the age of reboots and 90s nostalgia, so i doubt it will happen anything soon.

[NegativeExponents-]

Oof, stream ended a while ago but besides some of the music I really didn't see anything positive.

Exp share is worse than imagined. Streamer didn't even grind, just caught some pokemon he came across, skipped trainers, and rotated out pokemon, and still ended up over leveled.

The whole can't catch pokemon of a certain level if you don't have # of gym badges is dumb. They should just misbehave like over leveled pokemon do instead of arbitrarily blocking you from any sort of deviation from the "intended" path.

The pacing is wack. Took like 2 hours to get to the first gym but then only a few minutes to get to the second.

"Skip movies" option doesn't even skip the in-game cutscenes full of text dumps. Just skips the pre-rendered ones that most probably don't mind and would actually like to see.

Graphics and animations still look like ass and constant clipping going on with the models and there were moments in battle where the trainers behind their pokemon suddenly disappeared and reappeared.

The background of battles are generic and there's moments where the battle background doesn't even match where the battle is actually taking place or are inconsistent (Hop battling you in the city but the background is that of the wild area or battling twice on the bridge but one of the battles doesn't depict it as being on the bridge)

Edited November 10, 2019 by NegativeExponents-

[Dai]

4 hours ago, NegativeExponents- said:

*snip*

This game is a masterpiece, full stop.
 

 

Add in the fact that the game is *PISS EASY*. The streamer apparently avoided a lot of Pokemon and trainers, rotated his stuff, and he STILL was like, 5-6 levels higher than Wild Pokemon, and 2-3 levels higher than the Gym Leader. This is COMPLETELY busted.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

My friend asked me recently how I'd handle tutorials in a pokemon game. I said that at the start of the game, around when you get your first pokemon, an NPC would ask your character "hey kiddo! Is this your first pokemon adventure?" and that answer would be an on/off switch for tutorial sequences. It works since the question makes sense both narratively and and meta-textually outside the game world. Asking the player "Is this your first pokemon game?". It'd also be an incredibly rare opportunity to add some role playing to this series. Maybe your character isn't oblivious to the trainer lifestyle. I'd also throw in the teachy tv item since RPGs ought to have a place to reread tutorials anyway and oh my god I thought we fixed the issue of pokemon tutorials in gen 3.

Edited November 11, 2019 by Glennstavos

[Dai]

I was originally gonna rate this a "Sonic Forces" level. Some neat ideas with underwhelming execution, unnecessary pandering, a bit too easy, and not as graphically good as previous games...but JESUS, at least Sonic Forces has better merit than this.