Sword & Shield **Official news only** DLC Crown Tundra 22nd October

[Yung Dramps]

Apart from "we are looking to reintroduce old gameplay elements", there's nothing we didn't know - or assume - in what he said.

Even if we assumed some of these things, it's good to know for dead certain.

This paragraph in particular intrigues me:

"According to Masuda, the sheer number of Pokémon the series had accumulated over the last two-plus decades got to the point of being unwieldy. "Up until now, we’ve been proud we’ve been able to include so many Pokémon in the games, but as a result of that, there’s actually been quite a few features or gameplay ideas that we’ve had to abandon in the past," he says. "Going forward, thinking about the future of Pokémon, we want to prioritize all those new gameplay ideas, new ways to enjoy the game, and want to challenge ourselves at Game Freak to create new ways to enjoy the game. That’s really what drove the decision for this new direction.""

I wonder what this is pointing towards...

 

[DHR-107]

The Dexit situation is exactly how we expected it to be. Nothing more to add and nothing more to discuss. Game Informer was probably shut down on a line of questioning about the controversy it caused in the fanbase, so don't expect answers here. I wouldn't even read to much into anything else they say regarding it to be honest, they could just be saying this now as lip service as to why they are "forced" to do it now.

No shock about HMs not returning, though I wonder how exploration will work this time around, assuming they don't do anything like Ride Pokemon again. Are the days of items being behind shrubberies gone? Smashing Rocks? Pushing huge stone boulders?

XP Share also seems to not be able to be switched off in Sword and Shield. This is fine as long as the games levels scale appropriately like they did in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Otherwise this could be a Kalos all over again.

 

[Kurona]

... yo




""I’ve got to be very vague about it, but one example – it will be visible to the player and they’ll know when they see it, I think – say you have a Pokémon where it’s got all the right stats and everything, but there’s a personality parameter as well that comes into play in battles, and it might not be the right personality, so you’ll breed until you get the right one, is what people do currently. But you’ll see that there’s a system in the game that will fix that for people." "

 

[Count Bleck]

https://www.gameinformer.com/2019/1...echanics-to-let-you-use-your-favorite-pokemon

Article with the above quote. It really does look like they want to turn pokemon into Showdown

 

[Siggu]

Hopefully they'll do that right instead of the Bottle Cap system that was not encouraging to begin with.

 

[Kurona]

Hopefully they'll do that right instead of the Bottle Cap system that was not encouraging to begin with.

I imagine they will. If they're thinking in terms of being very hyper-focused on competitive battle, then they will surely be geared into the fact that most people - including their own official tournaments - set the level to 50 instead of 100.

 

[Prof. Almeida]

So Game Informer released all those articles under this page: https://www.gameinformer.com/pokemon

I'm expecting more coming here.

 

[Yung Dramps]

Good lord, that announcement about making competitive more accessible. In the article they present a hypothetical scenario - being able to take a member of your in-game team and refurbish them for competitive play in a timely manner. If they can keep up on that promise without a hair-pulling system like Gen 7's bottle caps, then we could have something truly incredible on our hands.

 

[Siggu]

So Game Informer released all those articles under this page: https://www.gameinformer.com/pokemon

I'm expecting more coming here.

Which according to https://www.gameinformer.com/digita...on-sword-and-shield-digital-issue-is-now-live, means there are more articles that are yet to be released for non-subscribed readers.

Good lord, that announcement about making competitive more accessible. In the article they present a hypothetical scenario - being able to take a member of your in-game team and refurbish them for competitive play in a timely manner. If they can keep up on that promise without a hair-pulling system like Gen 7's bottle caps, then we could have something truly incredible on our hands.

"I’ve got to be very vague about it, but one example – it will be visible to the player and they’ll know when they see it, I think – say you have a Pokémon where it’s got all the right stats and everything, but there’s a personality parameter as well that comes into play in battles, and it might not be the right personality, so you’ll breed until you get the right one, is what people do currently. But you’ll see that there’s a system in the game that will fix that for people."

They seem to imply a nature changer.

While it's thought with breeding in mind, this would make catching legendaries way less of a hassle.

 

[Rarycaris]

I imagine they will. If they're thinking in terms of being very hyper-focused on competitive battle, then they will surely be geared into the fact that most people - including their own official tournaments - set the level to 50 instead of 100.

I can also imagine a world where they just make it a lot easier to get to level 100 -- it was pretty much trivial in ORAS. Although with the move relearner changes in gen 7, I suppose there isn't really much reason to do it outside of using Bottle Caps.

Still, I'll be surprised if they make it possible to Bottle Cap ingame Pokemon before the E4.

 

[Bramblestein]

18 gyms?? Wild if true
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Serebii Update: There will be 18 Gyms in Pokémon Sword and Shield, spread across a minor league and a major league https://t.co/oV6DIIA7Ub
&mdash; Serebii.net (@SerebiiNet) October 1, 2019

 

[Yung Dramps]

"I’ve got to be very vague about it, but one example – it will be visible to the player and they’ll know when they see it, I think – say you have a Pokémon where it’s got all the right stats and everything, but there’s a personality parameter as well that comes into play in battles, and it might not be the right personality, so you’ll breed until you get the right one, is what people do currently. But you’ll see that there’s a system in the game that will fix that for people."

They seem to imply a nature changer.

While it's thought with breeding in mind, this would make catching legendaries way less of a hassle.

For sure it seems like we can at least expect a nature changer. However, I think at some level they are implying IVs can be toggled as well:
"This time around, we really wanted to introduce some systems that help the player be able to take those Pokémon they caught in the beginning, and the first one they chose, and actually take them straight into competitive battle. There’s a lot of hidden parameters to Pokémon that aren’t surfaced to the player. We're doing a lot of stuff in the back end introducing systems that allow players to make sure that Pokémon they want to use in competitive battles are viable."

"While it's no longer necessary to do so, Iwao says players can still put effort into breeding to come up with the perfect specimen for competitive play. "We do think there’s value in that effort that players put into it," he says. "But at the same time, I think with Sword and Shield we wanted to also have a system that makes it a little bit more accessible. For example, if you’re bringing a Pokémon over from a previous game into these games, being able to use that specific Pokémon that has sentimental value to you in the battle system competitively is something we wanted to try this time." "

If they're serious about this accessibility thing to the point of adding some kind of way to change natures, there's no way they won't simplify the IV grind as well in a substantial way.

18 gyms?? Wild if true
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Serebii Update: There will be 18 Gyms in Pokémon Sword and Shield, spread across a minor league and a major league https://t.co/oV6DIIA7Ub
&mdash; Serebii.net (@SerebiiNet) October 1, 2019

18 gyms, huh? That's funny, because there are 18 types as well...

A gym for every type? Does this mean we are finally gonna get a Dark gym?

 

[Siggu]

18 gyms?? Wild if true
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Serebii Update: There will be 18 Gyms in Pokémon Sword and Shield, spread across a minor league and a major league https://t.co/oV6DIIA7Ub
&mdash; Serebii.net (@SerebiiNet) October 1, 2019

I tried to avoid mentioning it because the source is not live yet (supposedly a Gameinformer article only available to subscribers) but if it's true then it's fantastic.

Hide

And hilarious to me because I did something like that in the typical young boy fan fiction I once wrote -and left unfinished-

 

[dodiabla]

I tried to avoid mentioning it because the source is not live yet (supposedly a Gameinformer article only available to subscribers) but if it's true then it's fantastic.

Hide

And hilarious to me because I did something like that in the typical young boy fan fiction I once wrote -and left unfinished-

Serebii mentions that there are to be Major and Minor Leagues, with gyms switching between Major and Minor for each version.

 

[ChrystalFalchion]

My bad, got the wrong end of the stick. 18 gyms, that’ll be incredible - as others have said one for each type. About bloody time we got a Dark gym, there’s been enough Elite 4 members who used it. They could call it the Night Badge. Although going with the stadium theme they could end up being cups instead.

Goodbye and good riddance HMs. I never liked you and will not miss you.

 

[Vengeance417]

If the personality-changing thing is actually talking about a "Nature Changer", I think it’ll be handled like the IV system currently is in Gen 7. Say you have an HP Fire Latios. It still technically has that 30 Speed IV, but by using a Bottle Cap, it can have its Speed raised to that of a 31 Speed IV Pokémon while still keeping HP Fire.

My guess for SwSh is that say you have an Impish Pokémon that you want to make have the Speed stat of a Jolly Pokémon. There will probably be a system in place that still keeps that Pokémon being Impish by nature, but will have Jolly Speed. If it’s actually like this, the nature itself won’t matter nearly as much to the Pokémon unless it’s already using it and you’d prefer it to stay the way it is.

 

[Yung Dramps]

About the 18 gyms, personally I think they’ll be 9 in each game, making for 18 totals. We already know the Fighting gym is exclusive to Sword and the Ghost gym exclusive to Shield.

I just want to know what type Zacian and Zamazenta are.

I have a different theory: I believe the gyms will be divided between the main story and the postgame, achieving an effect similar to how the Kanto and Johto gyms were divided in the various iterations of Gold and Silver. You challenge 8 or 9 minor league gyms in the main game, plot involving mascot legends and any other factors finishes up, then the bulk of the post-game is challenging the remaining gyms and entering the Champion's Cup along with any other activities such as potential legendary hunts. If all 18 gyms are available in both versions, then there's no way they can have all of them before the postgame, that would be a balancing/pacing nightmare. It also fits into another idea I had about Leon being postgame only i.e. Alder, but hey, that's just a theory, a- no not making that joke

 

[jas61292]

The idea of major and minor leagues intrigues me. When I first read those terms, my mind immediately jumped to baseball, which seemed odd, but then I saw the comment about gyms being able to change leagues every year, and that seems far more reminiscent of the system of promotion and relegation that is common in many soccer leagues. I kinda doubt this promotion system will be anything more than flavor dressing for why there can be differences between versions, but I like the implications it has, and I will be intrested to see how it is handled, especially in other forms of Pokemon media.

 

[RocketSurgery]

https://www.gameinformer.com/2019/10/01/pokemon-sword-and-shield-introduce-autosave-to-the-series

They are also warning that game resets might be a little different this time.

My assumption was that that is just referring to how the Switch doesn't really have a quick soft reset feature like the 3ds does.

 

[Kurona]

I wonder what this means for the version-exclusive gyms, then. Perhaps it's more that Bea's gym is in both games, but only in Sword is it a Major League gym.

 

[Siggu]

The idea of major and minor leagues intrigues me. When I first read those terms, my mind immediately jumped to baseball, which seemed odd, but then I saw the comment about gyms being able to change leagues every year, and that seems far more reminiscent of the system of promotion and relegation that is common in many soccer leagues. I kinda doubt this promotion system will be anything more than flavor dressing for why there can be differences between versions, but I like the implications it has, and I will be intrested to see how it is handled, especially in other forms of Pokemon media.

Or just like there are minor and major cups. English football itself has a lot of national cups of varying importance. The Major League could be like the FA Cup and the Minor League could be more like the League Cup or the EFL Trophy.

 

[Fumblebee]

I just thought of something. If there are 18 separate gyms, does that mean there'll be 18 different, unique cities to explore? Usually gyms are found in the next city you find. My hopes might be a little too high, since this is Game Freak we're talking about, but again, just a thought.

 

[Project_Mars]

I wonder what this means for the version-exclusive gyms, then. Perhaps it's more that Bea's gym is in both games, but only in Sword is it a Major League gym.

Pretty sure that is exactly what the implication is.

Also about the “Nature Changer” thing: As With last Gen when Bottle Cap Training was introduced, I still feel the idea of changing a ‘mons nature on the fly feels weirdly like a step too far in terms of keeping immersion.

On the other hand, making it easier/less time consuming to get into competitive ‘mons is always nice.

 

[Count Bleck]

I just wanr to like, revel in how fake this reveal sounds. If this was leaked in something seperate from the Affleck leak, would any of us taken it seriously? I highly doubt it.

 

[dodiabla]

I just thought of something. If there are 18 separate gyms, does that mean there'll be 18 different, unique cities to explore? Usually gyms are found in the next city you find. My hopes might be a little too high, since this is Game Freak we're talking about, but again, just a thought.

In all likelihood I think it’ll be 9 stadiums and you can compete in a Major/Minor battle at different times. I’m thinking we play through in the minor league, major league is post-game OR they’ll rotate by day so M/W/F are minor league stadium days and T/Th/S are Major league.