imo: watch it not get an official reveal, just have it show up a few times in other things and then the games come out.
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Sword & Shield **Official news only** DLC Crown Tundra 22nd October
- Thread starter DHR-107
- Start date
I see and understand where you're coming from now. I find it baffling they say they want us to decide the difficulty yet give us no way of making the opponent's stronger and, if "Party Experience" is always on, would make it hard to try and stay underleveled unless you ignore as many battles as possible (aka only catching Pokemon you want on your party and trainers you can't sneak past). Confusing yet they said they want to focus on competitive this time around yet things they can do in-game to give a competitive player some challenge they want they're outright refusing to do.
At least for "Party Experience" there's hope it can be turned off as they said "by default" it's on.
I had the same issue with "Dusk" Rockruff for USUM. I also always tried having the lowest level member in front of my party but since Rockruff was an event Pokemon it gained double experience and ended up being at least one level higher than the others in my party. I only ever sent it out against something it was super effective against (and usually if that was the second Pokemon the opponent sent out) just so I could use it. I don't recall having this issue with the other "Release Event" Pokemon like XY's Torchic or SM's Munchlax (I didn't use ORAS's Beldum because it was Shiny and so if I ever trained it I wanted to do it "right"). Rockruff is also in the Medium Fast group while Torchic is in Medium Slow and Munchlax is Slow, so that probably explains it.
Still no excuse to not put in difficulty levels. If they want the "average difficulty" to be how they design games now than fine, makes sense for those beginning to play Pokemon, but what about those experience players (be them a kid or adult) who are looking to face stronger trainers? It feels like they're so worried that a kid would accidentally select a higher difficulty setting and it'll put them off from Pokemon... which is kind of insulting to the kids. If you give them an option to switch difficulty in the options and inform them of being able to do that there should be no problem. And if the kid is too young to understand that, they're probably too young to be playing Pokemon. Only way a kid wouldn't understand switching difficulty is if they didn't read, and Pokemon games require a lot of reading (especially cutscenes that have no voice acting).
And heck, if a kid somehow gets "stuck" on a higher difficulty I think they can adapt. Because even at its most difficult as long as you use the Type Chart, items, and maybe some grinding if you can't beat an opponent with strategy you can usually get to the point you'll overpower them.
And they keep including those Trainer Schools yet giving them either super basic information or just a place to battle a few trainers. If you're going to have a place called the Trainer School and also have all of these hidden mechanics you might as well have the Trainer School at least mention of their existence. Trainer School has so much potential for being a vital place for information and ways to help the trainer at the start of their journey yet they always do nothing with them aside being a "quick stop".
I imagine this would be the case more than all Pokemon getting the same EVs.
It looks like that would hurt... unless the badges moved. Wait, I know! After beating the Champion the badges stand up and you then wear it like a crown!
That's not a bad idea! It would certainly be a way in adding in those "Minor Gyms" without making them Gyms.
For those wondering, here is what Ohmori originally said and the correction provided by a GF representative:
Fault I would say is on Ohmori's wording, not GameInformer. I think the biggest mistake was specifically mentioning there was 18 Gyms. Yes, 18 is the number of Types there are but unless GF has 18 Gyms planned that's an unnecessary detail. He should have said Galar has more than 8 Gyms and these Gyms compete with each other to see who gets in the Major League (who the player will face in the story for the Champion Cup) while others get placed in an unseen Minor League.
Of course, the "clarification" post is still confusing whether we'd be able to face the Minor League or not, which I think if the main issue here. If we can't challenge any Gyms in the Minor League they should say that. If we can face the Minor League than is there something we're missing? Like are "Gyms" called something else in the Minor League? They're being very confusing with their terminology and actual plans.
The interviewer was just trying to be "cute". The joke is that, since Aegislash has both a sword and shield, how can it be in either game as no matter what it has something which represents the other version.
Interesting idea but they've made it clear you'll only be battling the 8 Major League Gyms during the main story. The Minor League will be bonus "Gyms" at best, or they may simply just exist as a lore thing only and we never see all 18 Gyms that are rumored to exist.
And now for responses relating to the live camera stream:
Eh, I don't think it's necessary. Having watched 12 hours of it now and it seems like it only exists to reveal Galarian Ponyta. If things don't change in the next 12 hours I think I'll have a rant ready...
Also I'm sure some people are already planning on making a super cut of all the things that happened. Heck, if Pokemon Company was smart, instead of posting the entire 24 hour video they would have their own super cut video of all the interesting bits (it may help them avoid the massive amount of down votes).
Silly, those ARE Morelull. How do you think they sap your strength? It's radiation poisoning!
It looks like they did add horns to Ponyta's design. My guess is that it's now one of three Types: Fire/Fairy, Fire/Ghost, or Fairy/Ghost; was originally leaning towards Fire/Fairy but seeing how it's "flames" burned I'm now thinking Fairy/Ghost. And now since the Galarian Ponyta has horns, in order to make Galarain Rapidash special they may have given it wings.
Hmm, you know, the GS Spaceworld Demo revealed that among the many new Baby Pokemon originally planned they had one for Ponyta...
I would not be surprised if Impidimp was the Pokemon's version of the trollface.
My next post will be some new stuff from GameInformer (the Concept Art and they have their podcast where they talk about their visit to GF's offices for Pokemon SwSh and Little Town Hero).
Galarian Ponyta/Rapidash close up!
Yep, and the nail in the coffin, thats ponyta's cry from refresh
Why is the Pokemon Center a pub?
Why?.... I....
a pub is a bar Gamefreak! A bar! WHY IS YOUR PET HOSPITAL A BAR?!!!
...........
Why?.... I....
a pub is a bar Gamefreak! A bar! WHY IS YOUR PET HOSPITAL A BAR?!!!
...........
GameInformer Show - Pokemon Sword & Shield and Little Town Hero:
So, GameInformer has a podcast show called "GameInformer Show" where they talk about the games they're featuring in their magazine. Make sense, and I was ready to write it off as just re-stating everything we knew. Still, just incase they revealed some more info I decided to give it a quick listen. Boy, was I wrong to assume it wasn't going to tell us some new info that shed light on some things:
Masuda's Mind:
Let's start off with what will no doubt become controversial. So, it's been revealed that GameFreak had indeed increased their staff from the reported 200 to about 1,000 (also counting outsourced work and translators) since working on a console game is a lot more work than a handheld. However, considering how big the Pokemon franchise is, GI asked if GF would like to expand further. So, here's a rough list of things Masuda said:
Now it's later discussed that Masuda has two "modes": Composer Mode and Director Mode. Director Mode is when he's, well, directing a team to make the games. However its Composer Mode that's the most interesting and may explain his way of thinking. Composer Mode is when he's writing music and when he's in this mode he says he's very poetic, like one time he wrote directions to Ohmori but he didn't understand any of it and Masuda says he wrote the directions when he was in "Composer Mode". So taking that into account it sounds like Masuda sort of want to run things like how he writes music: very controlled, doesn't need that many elements, and he does what he wants to do.
Let's move on because just thinking about this is making my head hurt.
Designing Pokemon: Now it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that designing a Pokemon is treated as serious business. Designers can't just make a Pokemon, they have to explain every single design choice about the Pokemon. Examples include Scorbunny looks simple and easy to draw but took MANY iterations to reach that simplicity. James Turner had to explain why Vanillite was an ice cream Pokemon. To give Galarian Weezing a top hat they had to have a reason (which was it ate pollution and released purified air). Every claw and horn needed a reason to be part of a Pokemon's design.
"Party Experience" Always On?: GameInformer seems convinced that the "Party Experience" system is always on. Now, as we've seen with the 18 Gyms, they can be wrong on things. I'm holding onto Ohmori saying "it's on by default" as hope it can be turned off, but who knows if GI may have been told some additional information we haven't.
Wild Style: So seems like when GF said you could customize your style of play the Wild Area may be at least one place this can be done. It's explained you can either explore the Wild Area as much as you want or can just go straight to the next city and story part. This makes me wonder that, if you just keep going straight forward, they designed it so your party would be at an adequate level to face the challenges ahead. However, if you want to level-up your team or maybe find items that'll help you our you can explore the Wild Area for a bit. If true it's an interesting idea though, still, for trainers looking for a challenge BUT also want to explore they either need to know exactly where to go in the Wild Area to get what they want or are just out of luck.
Giga Vs Dyna: While they weren't told exact numbers, the percentage increase of Gigantamax is the same as Dynamax. The difference between the two is that, in addition to G-Max moves, Gigantamax Pokemon may have their stats adjusted differently and/or have different Abilities than their base form. So in theory a Pokemon which has a Gigantamax form isn't getting an advantage but rather just has an alternative choice. We'll see how true that turns out to be...
Best But Basic: GF want to make Sword & Shield the best Pokemon game but, since its the first core series console title, also wanted to go back to basics. That's why Gyms were brought back, hinting that Gyms may not be permanently back as we thought.
Stadium Feeling: There's no Battle Revolution-like announcer for the Gym matches, but the crowds will react to how the battle progresses such as cheering, chanting and signing.
Colorful Legends: The reason the Zacian & Zamazenta are named after colors is because Ohmori, following the "back to basics" thinking, wanted their names to follow the trend of early Pokemon titles being named after colors. In a way Pokemon Sword & Pokemon Shield is actually Pokemon Cyan & Pokemon Magenta. This may also mean there's no "Zallow" as this is just a thing for the Sword & Shield mascots.
Upcoming GameInformer Articles:
While GameInformer weren't allowed on the Sword & Shield development floor, GF was more than happy to show them the Little Town Hero development floor and tell them some history and trivia about the games development:
Not much here so just giving some quick thoughts/jokes:
Dyanamax Poke Ball: Now interesting thing here relates to something we just learned about Dynamazing. It was said Dynamaxing isn't growing the Pokemon but rather it's a large projection of the Pokemon. While we weren't given details how this exactly work (GF may not even know themselves), this concept art maybe does. We see that when a Poke Ball is "Dynamaxed", it's split up into a grid, the pieces expand out, and is seemingly being held together by energy. So if this is anything to go by, the Pokemon might indeed be in the center of its Dynamaxed form as the energy around it is reflecting its appearance all around it.
Player's House: WOW. The level of detail here is crazy (insert joke about mom not having her own room). Though it's not surprising as it looks quite compact. Like is it odd that the player's room is attached to the living room (BTW, don't think we don't see that Switch console in our room)? Also it looks like the bathroom is a combined utility room as it has a washing machine. Final thing that stands out is in the living room is a pet bed, so does your family (or mom) have a Pokemon pet like previous games have had?
Other Quick things:
So, GameInformer has a podcast show called "GameInformer Show" where they talk about the games they're featuring in their magazine. Make sense, and I was ready to write it off as just re-stating everything we knew. Still, just incase they revealed some more info I decided to give it a quick listen. Boy, was I wrong to assume it wasn't going to tell us some new info that shed light on some things:
Masuda's Mind:
Let's start off with what will no doubt become controversial. So, it's been revealed that GameFreak had indeed increased their staff from the reported 200 to about 1,000 (also counting outsourced work and translators) since working on a console game is a lot more work than a handheld. However, considering how big the Pokemon franchise is, GI asked if GF would like to expand further. So, here's a rough list of things Masuda said:
- Masuda ideal team number is 20.
- Quoted saying "When you have a bigger team, there's too many branches on that tree".
- Wants to keep the team small because communicating is challenging on a development team. An example given was explaining the concept of Dynamax to a team of 30 people would be messy, complicated, and disastrous (though not sure if that was something Masuda said or the GI guys thinking up something on the quick).
- GF's mission is to keep the team as small as possible while still cranking out the games.
- Masuda is looked up as a "spiritual lead". It's his desire to keep the team small and sticking to their "indie" roots.
Now it's later discussed that Masuda has two "modes": Composer Mode and Director Mode. Director Mode is when he's, well, directing a team to make the games. However its Composer Mode that's the most interesting and may explain his way of thinking. Composer Mode is when he's writing music and when he's in this mode he says he's very poetic, like one time he wrote directions to Ohmori but he didn't understand any of it and Masuda says he wrote the directions when he was in "Composer Mode". So taking that into account it sounds like Masuda sort of want to run things like how he writes music: very controlled, doesn't need that many elements, and he does what he wants to do.
Let's move on because just thinking about this is making my head hurt.
Designing Pokemon: Now it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that designing a Pokemon is treated as serious business. Designers can't just make a Pokemon, they have to explain every single design choice about the Pokemon. Examples include Scorbunny looks simple and easy to draw but took MANY iterations to reach that simplicity. James Turner had to explain why Vanillite was an ice cream Pokemon. To give Galarian Weezing a top hat they had to have a reason (which was it ate pollution and released purified air). Every claw and horn needed a reason to be part of a Pokemon's design.
"Party Experience" Always On?: GameInformer seems convinced that the "Party Experience" system is always on. Now, as we've seen with the 18 Gyms, they can be wrong on things. I'm holding onto Ohmori saying "it's on by default" as hope it can be turned off, but who knows if GI may have been told some additional information we haven't.
Wild Style: So seems like when GF said you could customize your style of play the Wild Area may be at least one place this can be done. It's explained you can either explore the Wild Area as much as you want or can just go straight to the next city and story part. This makes me wonder that, if you just keep going straight forward, they designed it so your party would be at an adequate level to face the challenges ahead. However, if you want to level-up your team or maybe find items that'll help you our you can explore the Wild Area for a bit. If true it's an interesting idea though, still, for trainers looking for a challenge BUT also want to explore they either need to know exactly where to go in the Wild Area to get what they want or are just out of luck.
Giga Vs Dyna: While they weren't told exact numbers, the percentage increase of Gigantamax is the same as Dynamax. The difference between the two is that, in addition to G-Max moves, Gigantamax Pokemon may have their stats adjusted differently and/or have different Abilities than their base form. So in theory a Pokemon which has a Gigantamax form isn't getting an advantage but rather just has an alternative choice. We'll see how true that turns out to be...
Best But Basic: GF want to make Sword & Shield the best Pokemon game but, since its the first core series console title, also wanted to go back to basics. That's why Gyms were brought back, hinting that Gyms may not be permanently back as we thought.
Stadium Feeling: There's no Battle Revolution-like announcer for the Gym matches, but the crowds will react to how the battle progresses such as cheering, chanting and signing.
Colorful Legends: The reason the Zacian & Zamazenta are named after colors is because Ohmori, following the "back to basics" thinking, wanted their names to follow the trend of early Pokemon titles being named after colors. In a way Pokemon Sword & Pokemon Shield is actually Pokemon Cyan & Pokemon Magenta. This may also mean there's no "Zallow" as this is just a thing for the Sword & Shield mascots.
Upcoming GameInformer Articles:
- Screenshot of Maya files for the steampunk city (not even GI weren't told its name).
- Masuda talks about a potential Pokemon timeline.
- Highlights of Grookey, Scorbunny, & Sobble, talking about how they were made and important things about them that may hint toward their evolutions.
- Interview with James Turner (drawing his favorite Pokemon and talking about his history).
While GameInformer weren't allowed on the Sword & Shield development floor, GF was more than happy to show them the Little Town Hero development floor and tell them some history and trivia about the games development:
- Started as a Gear Project and lead by a veteran Pokemon programmer of 20+ years.
- Little Town Hero was made for adults who didn't have much time for a full RPG. It has the highs and lows of an RPG game set in all one town.
- Is planned to be about 25 dollars!
- While right now being released on Switch, GF neither confirmed nor denied it could come to other consoles in the future.
- Toby Fox was brought in to make music by one of the other Pokemon composers Go Ichinose. Ichinose is a big fan of Undertale and had all the other GF staff play the game. The director joked how he's worried that the game's soundtrack would sell better than the game itself.
- Little Town Hero was actually being made before the Switch was announced.
Not much here so just giving some quick thoughts/jokes:
Dyanamax Poke Ball: Now interesting thing here relates to something we just learned about Dynamazing. It was said Dynamaxing isn't growing the Pokemon but rather it's a large projection of the Pokemon. While we weren't given details how this exactly work (GF may not even know themselves), this concept art maybe does. We see that when a Poke Ball is "Dynamaxed", it's split up into a grid, the pieces expand out, and is seemingly being held together by energy. So if this is anything to go by, the Pokemon might indeed be in the center of its Dynamaxed form as the energy around it is reflecting its appearance all around it.
Player's House: WOW. The level of detail here is crazy (insert joke about mom not having her own room). Though it's not surprising as it looks quite compact. Like is it odd that the player's room is attached to the living room (BTW, don't think we don't see that Switch console in our room)? Also it looks like the bathroom is a combined utility room as it has a washing machine. Final thing that stands out is in the living room is a pet bed, so does your family (or mom) have a Pokemon pet like previous games have had?
Other Quick things:
- Pokemon Center was designed after a PUB that Ohmori saw in the UK. (EDIT: Looks like Rapti beat me to this!)
- Gossifleur's design is based on a legend from the UK's Lake District that catching a floating cotton ball brings good luck.
- The idea of at least design direction for the Wild Area was inspired by a train ride that Ohmori was on in the UK.
- Infact a lot of this early artwork was drawn by Ohmori when he was in the UK for interviews for Sun & Moon (not USUM, the first Gen VII games).
What, don't you get hammered after participating in a sporting event? Seems pretty realistic to me.Why is the Pokemon Center a pub?
Why?.... I....
a pub is a bar Gamefreak! A bar! WHY IS YOUR PET HOSPITAL A BAR?!!!
...........
That... really doesn't sound good. Not even just the part about Masuda purposefully gimping Game Freak for the sake of comfort.
"The Pokemon become huge for three turns, giving them a boost to their HP, and also turning their attacks into Max Moves, which are like Z moves but weaker and with secondary effects." It's not really THAT complicated.
I don't think team size is the issue, Masuda. You're just sh*t at communication in general.
I find it mildly disturbing that impidimp only has one nostril.
And it continues to obscure the ponyta!
When we were still working through the Kubler-Ross Stages of Grief over Dexit, someone mentioned that game development teams are usually small. I just don’t think that 20 people is what anyone had in mind. Big Yikes.
Maybe we’re at the point where the torch needs to be passed on the Pokémon franchise. Gamefreak is a 30 year old company, and Pokémon is almost a 24 year old franchise.
Satoshi Tajiri has only served as Executive Producer for the last several Pokémon games, and probably has little input creatively. Ken Sugimori is not the Art Director for SwSh; James Turner is.
Meanwhile, Masuda has worked for Gamefreak as a composer since the original Red and Green, and has had some directorial role since Crystal with few exceptions (most of them being sequel titles or remakes). Maybe it’s time for him to take a cycle off, or at least stick just to composing?
I don’t want to sound harsh, but if his managerial style makes him a control freak that can only work with a small, trusted cabal then we all suffer for it, fans and company alike.
Who knows when in development GF decided to hire more people, and what could have been avoided or kept in the games if things were planned better? If SwSh was a 9 in terms of development difficulty, and turns out to be a lackluster game, how does that bode well for future titles?
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Well Ohmori is Masudas successor and he idolizes him, so even Masuda left his techniques would likely be copied. I know too little about game development to make any serious input, but maybe some people better than I can give it a whirl.
So we've practically got the whole view aside from a still shot, with 8 hours to go still. Wonder if there are any surprises left or if they plan on reaaaally dragging this out. Guess I'll find out in the morning, since I'm not about to pull an all-nighter :P
Probably about as experinced as you in game design, but I disagree with the Ohmori statement.
While it is possible that some techniques are gained from Masuda, I think Ohmori is absolutely thier own person and they are likely to have thier own methods to game development. Ohmori may actually like bigger teams who knows. Just because Masuda is a way doesn't mean that he is too.
Yeah, but Masuda at some point needs to take a complete back seat, that mind set is severely outdated for mainline franchises imo, especially for the biggest franchise in the world.
Why is the Pokemon Center a pub?
Why?.... I....
a pub is a bar Gamefreak! A bar! WHY IS YOUR PET HOSPITAL A BAR?!!!
...........
Have Pokémon Centres in the games ever really been hospitals though? I get that it’s kinda weird to mix food/drink service and any kind of medical care, but it’s not like there’s any need for sterility, nor are there ever any actual in-patients to consider when you just have a magic, near-instantaneous, universal healing console.
Plus, associating pubs and inns with healing is a pretty common RPG trope, and it kinda makes sense that this central hub building would combine the two, since it’d act as a natural first stop for tired travellers and their tired Pokémon.
Galarian Ponyta is a cool dude, I would love Fire/Fairy but pure Fairy or Fairy/Ghost seems more likely tbh (I would like those too, I love regional forms that are radical type changes from the base)
Stream is an interesting idea, but it could've been pulled off better with a few more reveals. There was definitely some highlights like Impidimp trolling the audience by obscuring Ponyta and I hope TPC sees what people liked and disliked about this stream and try an improved version sometime in the future
Now we wait to see if we get a formal trailer for Impidimp and/or Ponyta...
Stream is an interesting idea, but it could've been pulled off better with a few more reveals. There was definitely some highlights like Impidimp trolling the audience by obscuring Ponyta and I hope TPC sees what people liked and disliked about this stream and try an improved version sometime in the future
Now we wait to see if we get a formal trailer for Impidimp and/or Ponyta...
Well this was definitely a mankey's paw consequence of people wishing for slower reveals, a whole 24 hour stream just to reveal one new Pokemon :P I guess they're really banking on ponyta merch to sell like hotcakes to justify the amount of effort that must have gone into this.
Maybe it would have been slightly more impactful if we hadn't previously seen impidimp, as the excitement of seeing a completely new Pokemon fairly gives way into being annoyed at it blocking the Ponyta. :p TPC definitely seems to be doing very deliberate things with Impidimp--it's shown up in backgrounds murals in Bea's gym and camp screenshots since the demo--but I wonder if they've just been saving its full display for this livestream or if there's something more significant to it.
As for the horse of the 24 hours, I don't expect we'll get the trailer and gameplay footage till the usual Wednesday, so we have some days to speculate on it. It definitely has the coloration and rainbow powered hair to suggest fairy typing, but hard to tell if it gets a second. A lot of people guessing ghost, which while possible seems less likely design-wise than monotype or maybe something like psychic. The hair definitely looks like hair so I am guessing it won't be part fire type.
Maybe it would have been slightly more impactful if we hadn't previously seen impidimp, as the excitement of seeing a completely new Pokemon fairly gives way into being annoyed at it blocking the Ponyta. :p TPC definitely seems to be doing very deliberate things with Impidimp--it's shown up in backgrounds murals in Bea's gym and camp screenshots since the demo--but I wonder if they've just been saving its full display for this livestream or if there's something more significant to it.
As for the horse of the 24 hours, I don't expect we'll get the trailer and gameplay footage till the usual Wednesday, so we have some days to speculate on it. It definitely has the coloration and rainbow powered hair to suggest fairy typing, but hard to tell if it gets a second. A lot of people guessing ghost, which while possible seems less likely design-wise than monotype or maybe something like psychic. The hair definitely looks like hair so I am guessing it won't be part fire type.
I think it would have been better if there were more extended scenes of a Pokémon staying on-screen. Perhaps some of the Morelull stick around for a while, or a Phantump lays down beside the bush to sleep for a few hours. Some slightly more dynamic scene changes like that would have done wonders.
As-is though, I still liked the concept of the stream.
As-is though, I still liked the concept of the stream.
The stream was an awesome idea with a not so great execution. I wish I could see some Pokémon fighting for a Berry, or something like that, but I did ask for Pokémon courting, and that's what we saw as well, so I'm kinda happy.
Ok, so right now I'm banking on Fire/Fairy for Galarian Ponyta, or part Fire with another typing.
My evidence for this? Ponyta and Rapidash are classified as the Fire Horse Pokemon. No regional variant with the exception of evolutions has changed classification between the base and regional form, and out of the forms/evolutions which don't share types with their bases (Marowak, Ninetales, Sirfetch'd), their classification is generic enough that it can still apply to the new version (Bone Keeper, Fox and Wild Duck Pokemon respectively). The same goes the other way: the Alolan Golem line probably had to keep the Rock typing since Geodude and Graveler are known as the Rock Pokemon.
My evidence for this? Ponyta and Rapidash are classified as the Fire Horse Pokemon. No regional variant with the exception of evolutions has changed classification between the base and regional form, and out of the forms/evolutions which don't share types with their bases (Marowak, Ninetales, Sirfetch'd), their classification is generic enough that it can still apply to the new version (Bone Keeper, Fox and Wild Duck Pokemon respectively). The same goes the other way: the Alolan Golem line probably had to keep the Rock typing since Geodude and Graveler are known as the Rock Pokemon.