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On one hand, Dmax does not have the significant stat boosts and exclusivity of megas. On the other hand, the lack of exclusivity means it directly contributes to creeping the top line higher rather than being able to bring lower mons up to level, as does the consistency (it's possible to make megas with drastically different power boosts, as garchomp and mawile prove, while the universal Dmax puts a not-insignificant floor on what the boost can be)
On one hand, Dmax does not have the marked increase in power Z-moves did. On the other hand, many Z-moves found themselves being used to cover inconsistencies or downsides as much as for raw damage (e.g. magearna's fleur cannon, Gyrados' Bounce, garchomp's stone edge), for which Dmaxing is arguably an improvement, not a nerf. Additionally, up to half of the attacking Max moves increase a repeat attack's damage one way or another (2 offense increases, 2 defense reductions, sun, rain, electric/psychic/grassy terrain), generally matching the unsupported Z-move of that attack with about only a 20 point increase in base power.
Personally, I don't care about what its power level is, only whether I can craft dedicated users of the mechanic (and am thus not particularly hyped for it on completely separate grounds), but I think it would be disingenuous to say that it does not raise the power ceiling. Whether it will be a bigger increase than megas or Z-moves is, at present, still an open question.
On one hand, Dmax does not have the significant stat boosts and exclusivity of megas. On the other hand, the lack of exclusivity means it directly contributes to creeping the top line higher rather than being able to bring lower mons up to level, as does the consistency (it's possible to make megas with drastically different power boosts, as garchomp and mawile prove, while the universal Dmax puts a not-insignificant floor on what the boost can be)
On one hand, Dmax does not have the marked increase in power Z-moves did. On the other hand, many Z-moves found themselves being used to cover inconsistencies or downsides as much as for raw damage (e.g. magearna's fleur cannon, Gyrados' Bounce, garchomp's stone edge), for which Dmaxing is arguably an improvement, not a nerf. Additionally, up to half of the attacking Max moves increase a repeat attack's damage one way or another (2 offense increases, 2 defense reductions, sun, rain, electric/psychic/grassy terrain), generally matching the unsupported Z-move of that attack with about only a 20 point increase in base power.
Personally, I don't care about what its power level is, only whether I can craft dedicated users of the mechanic (and am thus not particularly hyped for it on completely separate grounds), but I think it would be disingenuous to say that it does not raise the power ceiling. Whether it will be a bigger increase than megas or Z-moves is, at present, still an open question.
The fact that it’s both lower damage than Z moves and has innate counterplay in your own Dynamax leads me to believe it’s definitely healthier for defensive play than Z moves are. Additionally, it’s (assumedly) phasable and can be stalled out with fake out or protect. But yeah lower initial damage definitely makes it easier to handle even if it does last 3 turns
Not "great", not "fantastic" nor "awe-inspiring". Just, "fine".
Pokemon Sword and Shield will most likely be fine pokemon games, and by itself that's not necessary a bad thing. With that in mind thought, I wanna suggest to everyone interested in the future to keep your expectatives in check, because if recent trends are any indication, what you see is gonna be (for the most part) what you will get. No more, no less.
I'm sure the new Madden game will most likely be a 'fine' football video game, but its sales have declined every year for at least the past 5 years. Sacrificing quality to cater to microtransactions/merchandise sales is the kind of short-sighted move that catches up to any franchise no matter how big.
The fact that it’s both lower damage than Z moves and has innate counterplay in your own Dynamax leads me to believe it’s definitely healthier for defensive play than Z moves are. Additionally, it’s (assumedly) phasable and can be stalled out with fake out or protect. But yeah lower initial damage definitely makes it easier to handle even if it does last 3 turns
How have all these people convinced themselves it's lower damage when something like a Life Orb is boosting the power of a 130 BP max move to stronger than the majority of Z moves and many of the moves themselves will further boost damage by setting beneficial terrains or weather? And that's before getting into how whatever gets Gigantamax will likely have a signature move that's even more powerful or has better side effects.
I'd bet a lot of money that the moves have at least some ability to break through Protect, otherwise the mechanic would be basically useless in GF's preferred metagame of doubles plus it would make the 'super protect' that every non-damaging move transforms into even more of a downgrade if you could achieve the same results by just using Protect and not Dynamaxing.
Wow, I completely forgot about items. Given my previous calculations that (base move power +20)*1.5~=Z-move power, this means that banded/specs Max moves are effectively 3 Z-moves in a row, plus extra effects. The restriction from choice items may matter more in something like OU, but my most seriously played format is Monotype, where having a resistance at all, let alone one that can switch into that kind of power, is far from universal.
With this you are still assuming that the best option is always to dinamax the pokemon with LO or the choice item, which very likely wont be, and forget that the opponent will always be able to dinamax whatever check they have, including a potential immunity or wall, or leaving open to phazing if you arent able to 1shot.
You guys seem to forget pokemon isnt 1v1.
(Plus once more, remember that pokemon is "balanced" around VGC which is a 2v2 format, and in 2v2 flinch protect and phazing are much much more common)
With this you are still assuming that the best option is always to dinamax the pokemon with LO or the choice item, which very likely wont be, and forget that the opponent will always be able to dinamax whatever check they have, including a potential immunity or wall, or leaving open to phazing if you arent able to 1shot.
You guys seem to forget pokemon isnt 1v1.
(Plus once more, remember that pokemon is "balanced" around VGC which is a 2v2 format, and in 2v2 flinch protect and phazing are much much more common)
Every non-attacking move gets turned to Protect, so yes it's common sense that the best users will be offensively oriented. But by all means continue to bend over backwards in an attempt to carry water for a multibillion dollar video game franchise.
Every non-attacking move gets turned to Protect, so yes it's common sense that the best users will be offensively oriented. But by all means continue to bend over backwards in an attempt to carry water for a multibillion dollar video game franchise.
No need for the ad-hominem, you’re perfectly entitled to think one mechanic is good without being a “sheep” or whatever you people like to call them.
Plus, every status becoming protect means that Dynamaxing your check not only allows it to take hits better but also stall the Dynamax regardless thanks to max guard wasting turns. Yes the best users will be offensive, but the ability to use it whenever also gives it real defensive counterplay compared to Z-moves, as only certain boosting items allow you to reach Z-power and those items all have drawbacks. Or you could even predictively counter Dynamax, who knows
Lol. Anyways, if your idea of counterplay for it is having Protect/Fake out/phazing moves on everything, it's pretty obvious already that it is not going to succeed where GF has failed at balancing things in the past. There's no need to pretend as though it's some ingenious mechanic, it's a carrot to get Pokemon Go players into the main series games so they can spend more on microtransactions/online play there as well. There will be certain Pokemon (or at least ones with hidden abilities or special moves) inaccessible outside of the special 4v1 raid battles in the only open-world area of the game, and obviously the in-game AI is so dumb that many people will feel compelled to buy the online service in order to have competent teammates to help them defeat/obtain these Pokemon. And of course these won't be available all at once, so you're going to have to keep paying month after month because you never know when the good Dynamax event will be available. I assure you that for GameFreak, the PvP or single-player experience is much less of a factor than these concerns.
People have twisted themselves into a pretzel where at first, Dynamax was good because it gave every Pokemon the chance to be viable (unlike Megas, where a lot of them weren't worth using because there were strictly better ones like Mega Salamence or what have you). Now, as it becomes more obvious that it's not going to be much different except probably even more centralizing, it's that people are too simple to understand that 1v1 battles (you know, the ones that make up 99% of the main story) are completely irrelevant to the geniuses at GameFreak or that obviously they intended their most hyped game mechanic to be 2 gigantic Pokemon Protect stalling against each other.
I plan on making my chain response on the weekday, but after watching this video I just feel I had to post it as soon as possible. It's a Youtuber who I had mentioned before, Lockstin & Gnoggin, and this is his take on the controversies of Sword & Shield. He shows the viewpoints of both sides, has done his research (way more then any of us), and overall brings up good points and counters and counter-counters. I think anyone who had any strong opinions about GF's decisions may want to watch this, though warning it's 40 minutes long:
At certain points it kind of feels like he's been reading and responding to the arguments on this very thread, lol.
I'm not saying simple designs are bad, but it's just... if this thing were on a "get well soon" card, I'd probably think it's just a sheep, not a Pokemon.
My biggest fear when it comes to those 2 is that they will inevitably have evolutions, and I'm scared of the evolutions ruining the concept.
Same as Sobble basically.
Actually, thinking of it, I *could* see Wooloo not having a evolution and staying as unevolved 1 stager. We've seen lot of scenes featuring Wooloos raised in "farms", kinda like Tauros and Miltank in SM, so it's actually a legitimate option that it just won't evolve and will stay as one stager, something not exactly new seeing it was done a lot in gen 7.
My biggest fear when it comes to those 2 is that they will inevitably have evolutions, and I'm scared of the evolutions ruining the concept.
Same as Sobble basically.
Actually, thinking of it, I *could* see Wooloo not having a evolution and staying as unevolved 1 stager. We've seen lot of scenes featuring Wooloos raised in "farms", kinda like Tauros and Miltank in SM, so it's actually a legitimate option that it just won't evolve and will stay as one stager, something not exactly new seeing it was done a lot in gen 7.
As someone who doesn't even like how this game is looking, I'm loving the character design and as always it's top notch. Corviknight and Impidimp are easily my favourites so far but I have a hard time not liking every new Pokémon revealed at this point
1. Corviknight (design is among the all-time best)
2. Yamper (good boy)
3. Duraludon
4. Grookey
5. Zamazenta
6. Alcremie
7. Rolycoly
8. Impidimp
9. Sobble
10. Zacian
11. Drednaw (meh originally but gigantamax is cool)
12. Wooloo
13. Gossifleur/Eldegoss
14. Scorbunny (only one i dislike, sorry guys but he looks weird to me)
I plan on making my chain response on the weekday, but after watching this video I just feel I had to post it as soon as possible. It's a Youtuber who I had mentioned before, Lockstin & Gnoggin, and this is his take on the controversies of Sword & Shield. He shows the viewpoints of both sides, has done his research (way more then any of us), and overall brings up good points and counters and counter-counters. I think anyone who had any strong opinions about GF's decisions may want to watch this, though warning it's 40 minutes long:
At certain points it kind of feels like he's been reading and responding to the arguments on this very thread, lol.
I actually really enjoyed the video, because although it opened my eyes to Game Freaks dumb fuck budgeting/employment decisions, it still was optimistic about the games themselves and told people to stop being assholes to each other. So let's :D
Although I am still not really convinced about the idea that mobile is killing the series due to the short lifespans of their games. [Go is an anomoly, but the recent news about Duel's cut-off whilst incomplete and previous history with Quest and Magikarp Jump makes me question fully how long Masters will go for, or if it can reach Shuffle lifespan.]
I wouldn't be too hard on Serebii. They've been reliable for years so I think they're allowed a mess up here and there. And with the way GF handles distributing information I don't blame them believing a rumor that GF was going to reveal more information on a show they usually do it on. Whenever there's a new Pokemon game we're all excited to get the latest news, but remember we're at the mercy of how GF does it (Direct, magazine interview, at an end of a show, twitter, on the official website, on the website set up for the games, etc.) so things slip through the crack (either us missing information or someone accidentally thinking new information is coming). And no, this is not a way to do distribution of new information for one of the most expected games, but here we are.
KH basically breaks down why Pokemon could being do all of that- and he goes through points like we've already discussed- but the main point is that Pokemon sales are not from the games but rather from merchandise- the main point basically is this: Pokemon Games exist for merchandising-not for a good game experience; aka creating plushies and trading cards etc. The games aren't "good " because they don't have to be. People will buy and play the games because they have the same gameplay and colorful mons, and then most will buy things based off the series. Its really common marketing technique- I mean look at the Powerpuff girls reboot- terrible show, but the Powerpuff girls are iconic so people could still bank off them. This goes back to why GF refuses to hire more people and spend more time making animation better. The games don’t have to be good as long as they sell merchandise, which they will.
Now already this guy doesn't seem to care that much for Pokemon, he's indifferent at best at own admittance. While there is something to say about seeing an outside perspective on it, I got to say at a few points this video sort of felt conspiracy-ish.
4:40: Like right here, he pretty much implies the Pokemon games ONLY exist to make merchandise. And I have to disagree. Now yes, the Pokemon franchise has become a major merchandise behemoth where a lot of money is made, but to say it's the only reason new games are made completely snuffs what qualities the games do have. You don't get the core series Pokemon games we've had without there being passion behind them, and that's no different with Sword & Shield. The issue at this very moment isn't with lackluster story, characters, and locations, GF is great at creating those... it's the actually programming and animating department they've fell behind in. And it's by choice rather than necessity. Even if Pokemon Company is forcing them to do it yearly, GF could still hire on new staff or contract out work they have the least interest in.
6:20: Now he actually makes a point here I don't think any of us thought of: GF is going straight from a handheld developer to a main console developer. I'm wondering if this is maybe the linchpin to GF's problem: they're still making the games as if its for a handheld. Thus the smaller team (which is split between games), small budget, and quick releases. They haven't changed their game breaking practices, if anything, it may have worsened it as now they have all that extra space to do their brute force programming. Dynamax Pokemon probably wouldn't be possible last gen because they didn't have the game space for the extra bigger models, but now they do! Oh, wait, looks like they just hit the ceiling and still have less than half/third/quarter of the Pokemon to do. Should they maybe take a note from Iwata and compress the model data until its needed? NAH! They've been meaning to cull the Pokedex for a while, this just gives them an excuse!
Watched the whole video, nothing I really wanted to comment on until the end which felt really pessimistic and overall makes me want to dismiss this video. In the end he pretty much says "stop you're complaining, it means nothing, buy the games or don't, they'll still make lots of money in the end so they don't care". Harsh truth? Partly maybe. But I'm not going to shut up. F@#$ you! If I see a problem, I'm going to say something. And I encourage everyone to do this. "But what does it matter? They're making millions! They don't have to listen to anyone". Sure, that's true as long as the games and merchandise keeps selling, but with a view like that here's how I see it: if they having nothing to lose not listening, they also have nothing to lose by listening. In GF's viewpoint everything they're doing is fine, but if they hear even a small bit of feedback about issues and they decide that even some of the problems are things they could easily fix/address and do that, then those complaints worked. They got through the barriers, reach GF, and GF agreed and did something to fix or at least make the problem less. Now, I doubt they'll ever bring back the National Dex for a core series (unless maybe its the advanced version), BUT maybe our angry cries made them realize they need to especially make sure no Pokemon is ever absent for more than one generation. Also may make them think about adding more features to HOME for the "stuck" Pokemon to do. And, hey, maybe it may also get them to make a new Stadium/Colosseum/Battle Revolution game where at the very least all Pokemon can battle in (and for the Pokemon "stuck" in HOME able to learn some of the newest Moves). And even if the complaints look like they fall on deaf ears for this game, it may make GF decide to make improvements on the games after. Sword & Shield shows GF they can't pretend they're this little studio working on handhelds anymore, they're on a console and they need more people, more budget, and maybe even talk with Pokemon Company and Nintendo to give them more time between games (because I still refuse to believe without a core series game each year that Pokemon Company would be up a creek without a paddle).
Counterpoints:
Yokai watch games are more polished than pokemon but because they're pushed out so quickly and they're all so similar, the franchise got fatigued really quickly. It is also a series designed to be easily merchandisable, but it is not doing nearly as well as it was when it first started. It didn't matter that they kept introducing new yokai with every game to sell off. I am interested in seeing how the new switch game does, as it looks very different from the 3DS games.
But Yokai Watch did that right out of the gate. It saw what Pokemon was doing now and started imitating it, but what they should of done is seen that before Gen V that Pokemon actually did take its time to develop main series games. They copied Pokemon's recent bad behaviors but without the fanbase and backup money which Pokemon had gained over years from slower development.
Hmm, I do wonder if the metagame will start heavily focusing on just a handful of Gigantamaxed Pokemon simply from their G Max move alone. At the moment I think Alcremie's and Corviknight's would be on the top of the list, at the very least for late game when healing is more valuable or would be tougher for the opponent to set back up its field effect moves. Sadly I can sort of see Drednaw being at the bottom as many Pokemon can easily set up Stealth Rock (and it's typing doesn't do any favors for it). Maybe had it set up Stealth Rock and three layers of Spikes that would maybe given it some niche, but just setting up Stealth Rock I don't see as such a big side effect worth giving up a Gigamax/Dynamax slot for. And all of this of course doesn't take into account the normal Dynamax move effects which may be preferred like setting up a certain Weather and/or Terrain.
I disagree. When was Worldie "bending backwards" for GF? They were just pointing out GF focuses on Double Battles for VGC so there being two Pokemon on the field should be a factor to take into account. Like in Single Battles all the Dynamax & Gigantamax moves have their purpose, but in Double Battles the moves that summon Weather, Terrain, or have an effect which BOTH Pokemon on your side on the field can benefit from will probably be tiered higher (or at least as the first Max Move to be used... or the last depending on circumstances).
I assure you that for GameFreak, the PvP or single-player experience is much less of a factor than these concerns.
Wait, what? GF doesn't care about the multiplayer AND single player? Then what do they care about? Like, if your argument is GF just wants to make people pay for Nintendo's online service than shouldn't you be saying GF only cares about the multiplayer.
Lockstin brings up a lot of stuff but I just want to comment on a few:
8:00: Here he shows a Chinese knockoff which has given the Pokemon more complex & dynamic animations for moves, but the game only has 60 Pokemon thus why they can do it. But then Lockstin suggests GF could maybe at least give each Pokemon a unique move with such animation. However I have a different idea: he points out that the game has Blastoise shooting water from its cannons and Charizard breathing fire from its mouth. And I ask why can't GF do context sesentive animations for at least STAB? Like when a STAB move is used there's a quick unique animation seperate from the typical "Special attack" animation where we see how the Pokemon uses it's STAB before hitting the boundry where the move animation then takes over. Fire Pokemon will breathe fire, show where the Water Pokemon releases their water, Grass Pokemon could show storing green colored solar energy before launching it, etc.. Also, it wouldn't hurt for Contact Moves to move the models close up to one another. You can hide the actual impact via camera angle or a flashy animation. Most fans are willing to suspend their suspesion of disbelief as long as the Pokemon are close to each other; we know they're either not actually hitting each other or one is phasing through the other. But if you keep them distanced apart we obviously will notice they're not hitting each other. 9:12: Oh, and of course more dynamic poses, like a pose an animal would actually be in if in an actual fight (which doesn't sound as complicated as you think since a lot of Pokemon would probably share the dynamic pose depending on their body shape, like many quadruped would look like they're ready to pounce).
12:32: Now this part surprised me. I didn't realize Hop's excited animation was the same as Hau's. Like, wow, really? On one side I get wanting to recycle some basic animations or modifying a unique animation, but this is almost copy & paste. Like at least make Hop's maybe a bit less wild and/or have more sharp movements; makes sense for Hau to be like that since he's more laid back but Hop is supposed to be an eager battler so has more controlled/deliberate movements. 12:36: I don't really care about a Pokemon just popping up. Yes, I think it would be better if a Pokemon spawned in a taller grass area with a grass rustling animation covering up most of the spawn (or having the Pokemon spawn out of view but you either hear the Pokemon's cry (or get an alert what species of Pokemon spawned behind or around the corner)). However, for something like this I'm willing to overlook it as I don't want to wait around a spawn point, I'd rather the Pokemon to just appear for me to battle and possibly catch. 27:45: Another thing that surprised me, the unofficial and estimated cost to making a Pokemon game is 20 million. And it was mentioned that GF at least made 600 million from XY alone (not to mention a total worth of 17 Billion). And yes, I'm sure they're also putting quite a bit of money into Town judging on how its animations are looking better than SwSh... but is that because it was given a bigger budget or because they may have more staff working on it? Heck, if they gave SwSh and Town both 75 million budget each that would still only be a quarter of what XY earned. And with that additional 55 million they could hire more staff (or as Lockstin later points out, contract work out) to make the games look and play better while still earning stupid amounts of money. Well, a nice tidy profit of money, it's Pokemon Company that'll make stupid amounts of money from all the merch. And if the games were better maybe that would get people to buy more merch as they'd want to support the franchise. 32:30: I know to joking but at the same time I'm also hoping to Arceus that GF didn't purposely plan this to be some kind of viral marketing stunt by using internet culture against itself. 42:23: And that's another big question. Not about GF purposely making the games bad so Nintendo would buy it from them (cause that makes no sense as it would devalue the franchise, plus Nintendo would very likely buy all of GF's shares in Pokemon if the GF bosses gave them the opportunity; making Pokemon a first party franchise would be a major boon for Nintendo). But rather is this all happening because GF is seeing how successful the mobile phone spin-offs are doing and feeling like they're becoming more and more less important thus are playing it safe and coming up with a backup plan with Town? If that's the case, unlike Lockstin, I can't feel sorry for them. Maybe pity, a disappointed pity. Because if that's the truth, playing it safe is only assuring that they're becoming less important to Pokemon's success. They're showing that even though they're doing as little as possible the franchise name alone would make it a ton of money, so in the eyes of Nintendo and the Pokemon Company why do they need GF? And this is just combined with GF's seemingly refusal to adapt.
Actually, thinking of it, I *could* see Wooloo not having a evolution and staying as unevolved 1 stager. We've seen lot of scenes featuring Wooloos raised in "farms", kinda like Tauros and Miltank in SM, so it's actually a legitimate option that it just won't evolve and will stay as one stager, something not exactly new seeing it was done a lot in gen 7.
Well if signs in the stadium are anything to go by I think Yamper may have an evolution coming of another species of dog, from the looks of it maybe a(n English) greyhound.
As for Wooloo, well though also often show Mareep kept on farms too but it has two other evolution. I can see Wooloo probably having a fiercer looking ram evolution which are leaders and watchers of the flock, similar to Ampharos is with Mareep.
One could say that's really the biggest thing going for it at this point. Also the region looks interesting. It's just the actual game part of it that's having issues *nervous laugh*.
Regarding Pokenchi not showing anything new, any misunderstanding isn't serebii's fault. Something was lost in translation between serebii and whatever you were looking at, but here is what they said on their site and Twitter:
serebii did a fine job about not making false promises, putting what I assume is a description from Pokenchi in quotation marks, and immediately after specifying that the show might not actually contain any new information.
I generally like to lurk OI and enjoy seeing what people have to say about the games. Lately though, in this thread, one recurring point among all the thinly veiled (and no longer allowed) complaints about dexit is that GF's team is a small team and should hire more people to avoid dexit. For a game developer, ~200 employees is not small. That's ludicrous. Game development companies don't get larger than a few hundred employees. Small would be tens of employees, and some games are made by a single individual (not triple-A titles, mind you).
Furthermore, the claims about GF needing to just hire more people to avoid dexit is also not as simple as people make it out to be. Being a software engineer myself, I'm familiar with the concept of the famous book The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks, which makes the main point that adding more people to a software project generally makes the project take longer because: new people have to ramp up and learn all the domain knowledge of GF's specific tools and processes, and that learning often comes from the more senior team members who would be faster completing the project without teaching others.
Now I don't fault folks in this forum for not knowing this. In fact, project managers all over the world still make this mistake to this day, despite this book and conventional wisdom suggesting otherwise in the software industry for decades.
The truth is: if it takes X amount of hours to complete one task, and you need to do 500 of that task, it will take around 500 * X hours, give or take depending on some factors. If you need to do 1000 of that task, it will take 1000 * X hours.
The truth is: if human beings spend more and more time doing tasks, they will commit more mistakes and/or require more coordination than they would for fewer tasks, and that causes more risk in completing a software project by a needed deadline.
The truth is: if GF includes 500 Pokemon in this game instead of 1000, they have less risk when targeting a specific release deadline, which other users on this forum have already explained is paramount to the rest of TPC's business of making anime, merchandise, marketing materials, etc.
The truth is: for every 1 person who doesn't purchase SwSh in protest of dexit, there will be 1000 who do purchase the games, so there is some but not a great deal of risk to GF and TPC in making this decision. They will still sell millions.
All that said, I completely understand the anger about dexit, and I also wish that we could have every 'mon we ever raised on our TV screens on the Switch. But, when y'all are slipping in comments/arguments about dexit amongst your more accepted-by-the-rules SwSh discussion, please for the love of Arceus, Delibird, and leader of the PokePack Pikachu, DO BETTER than "lolwut jus add devs GF u suk".
I'm not sure if this was posted already but I posted this in the Smogon Discord yesterday. It's a long technical post that analyzes the current Sprite / Graphics situation. It's a great read and it's completely unbiased.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemon/comments/cgh8fy
I'm not sure if this was posted already but I posted this in the Smogon Discord yesterday. It's a long technical post that analyzes the current Sprite / Graphics situation. It's a great read and it's completely unbiased.
with the way this embeds you might want to put it in a spoiler, lol. I'm reading through it right now and it's quite daunting what the modelers have to face with all this, mama mia.
I generally like to lurk OI and enjoy seeing what people have to say about the games. Lately though, in this thread, one recurring point among all the thinly veiled (and no longer allowed) complaints about dexit is that GF's team is a small team and should hire more people to avoid dexit. For a game developer, ~200 employees is not small. That's ludicrous. Game development companies don't get larger than a few hundred employees. Small would be tens of employees, and some games are made by a single individual (not triple-A titles, mind you).
Furthermore, the claims about GF needing to just hire more people to avoid dexit is also not as simple as people make it out to be. Being a software engineer myself, I'm familiar with the concept of the famous book The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks, which makes the main point that adding more people to a software project generally makes the project take longer because: new people have to ramp up and learn all the domain knowledge of GF's specific tools and processes, and that learning often comes from the more senior team members who would be faster completing the project without teaching others.
Now I don't fault folks in this forum for not knowing this. In fact, project managers all over the world still make this mistake to this day, despite this book and conventional wisdom suggesting otherwise in the software industry for decades.
The truth is: if it takes X amount of hours to complete one task, and you need to do 500 of that task, it will take around 500 * X hours, give or take depending on some factors. If you need to do 1000 of that task, it will take 1000 * X hours.
The truth is: if human beings spend more and more time doing tasks, they will commit more mistakes and/or require more coordination than they would for fewer tasks, and that causes more risk in completing a software project by a needed deadline.
The truth is: if GF includes 500 Pokemon in this game instead of 1000, they have less risk when targeting a specific release deadline, which other users on this forum have already explained is paramount to the rest of TPC's business of making anime, merchandise, marketing materials, etc.
The truth is: for every 1 person who doesn't purchase SwSh in protest of dexit, there will be 1000 who do purchase the games, so there is some but not a great deal of risk to GF and TPC in making this decision. They will still sell millions.
All that said, I completely understand the anger about dexit, and I also wish that we could have every 'mon we ever raised on our TV screens on the Switch. But, when y'all are slipping in comments/arguments about dexit amongst your more accepted-by-the-rules SwSh discussion, please for the love of Arceus, Delibird, and leader of the PokePack Pikachu, DO BETTER than "lolwut jus add devs GF u suk".
Just an FYI that over half of Game Freak's staff is working on Town. And nothing is stoping them from hiring temps to help with animations considering the software is fairly standardized.
