The appearance of a refreshed and diverse meta after dexit is a complete illusion. The games simply haven't been out long enough for people to crack down on what the best new mons and team comps are. Just like always, this meta will boil down to a dozen or so key mons showing up on nearly every team. If anything, dexit hampers meta diversity, because the best will always rise to the top and the shit will always sink, regardless of the absolute power scale. Just because we arent seeing lando t heatran mag every game doesn't mean those same trends wont re-emeege.
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Dexit discussion thread
- Thread starter Codraroll
- Start date
Diverse? Sure not. It will eventually stabilize and find the ever-reliable options.
Refreshed? Actually yes, as it's at least a change of pace and a breath of fresh air as some of the permanently centralizing options are absent this time. For some, NOT seeing something like Heatran everywhere for the first time in four generations is something they like.
Give it a month and we'll see how that holds up. We lost a lot of glue mons that aren't easily replaced.
Screw Chansey, though. Nobody will mourn the loss of Chansey.
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I don't see how this new meta is different from a Regional Dex Only Meta?
Yes, a Regional Dex Only Meta isn't the Smogon's standard, but GF doesn't care about Smogon. If the Dexit is an attempt to make a more balanced game, then it is completely and absolutely berefet of any difference in VGC with the first wave of tournaments.
Maybe the overall balance could be better than the previous generations, but please let's not treat this as a revolutionary move. The only revolutionary thing is that many pokemon aren't available at all in the data, and in many VGC tournament limitations exist anyway.
Yes, a Regional Dex Only Meta isn't the Smogon's standard, but GF doesn't care about Smogon. If the Dexit is an attempt to make a more balanced game, then it is completely and absolutely berefet of any difference in VGC with the first wave of tournaments.
Maybe the overall balance could be better than the previous generations, but please let's not treat this as a revolutionary move. The only revolutionary thing is that many pokemon aren't available at all in the data, and in many VGC tournament limitations exist anyway.
I purchased a Switch for the first time last night just to try out Sword. Deep down, I am still pissed about every Pokémon not being present in these games. I have had a whole hell of a lot more fun in the first few hours of gameplay than I expected to though. Even early on in the game, there’s a wide variety of Pokémon to choose from.
I’m very curious to see what the competitive scene turns out to be like.
I’m very curious to see what the competitive scene turns out to be like.
You can’t just pretend like all Pokémon don’t exist. If Game Freak’s intention is to make each installment of Pokémon a sort of isolated experience, each with its own meta, then Pokémon Home ought to become like an official Showdown. There needs to be a meta where all previous pokemon, gimmicks, items, and moves exist.
This is Smogon, so this is more a discussion about the meta than the other aspects of the games, but Game Freak is trying to lay a foundation here that there will never be consistency between their games again, and they don’t care. Moves that are complete staples could disappear next generation. Frankly, I don’t see how you’re all so nonchalant about this latest nail in the Pokémon coffin.
This is Smogon, so this is more a discussion about the meta than the other aspects of the games, but Game Freak is trying to lay a foundation here that there will never be consistency between their games again, and they don’t care. Moves that are complete staples could disappear next generation. Frankly, I don’t see how you’re all so nonchalant about this latest nail in the Pokémon coffin.
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I think exploring a post-apocalyptic metagame is exciting.
You mean turning a 1-6 disadvantage into a victory sweep because Gamefreak thinks Dynamax is a balanced concept?
The apocalypse is brutal.
I didn't say Dynamaxing specifically was a good idea. We'll have to wait for Showdown to properly emulate the mechanic (max moves currently use z-move power) but I would definitely not be against banning the mechanic as a whole.
The apocalypse in question, as indicated by this thread's topic of discussion, is Dexit.
Gamefreak could have been replacing the whole movepool every generation since the series began, because the consistency you're talking about only matters if you could battle across generational lines. They make changes to old moves all the time - Tackle went from 35/95 to 50/100 to 40/100; Fire Blast, Hydro Pump etc. went from 120 power to 110; Outrage and friends went from 90 to 120 power; Jump Kick and High Jump Kick used to be 70 and 85 power. Cutting moves entirely is a little more significant, but not by that much. I don't think there's a rational justification for panicking that "moves that are complete staples could disappear next generation" since Gamefreak have very much adopted a buff-first mentality to date, and cutting a move is the ultimate nerf.
An interesting analysis and theory. The only warning is this guy is a heavy anti-dexit: It provides some key notes on Pokemon's market tactics, such as:
- Different Versions provide huge inflations. Despite most of us considering the game to be the same, the game themselves have different boxart and are marketed separetly, so they are technically different games, thus has different sales technically. Children who see that might believe that they are separate games and buy them as a result.
- He also notes that in video games market, its usually frowned upon to release same versions and then a third, but GF gets an exception for some reason.
- Because of the inflated sales of the dual versions, the third versions of revenue.
- Because of the sales of the third versions provide a 50% more cash, GF started to use that when releasing BW2 as dual third versions to create more revenue. If you look at the sales of BW2 and USM, they sold considerably more than the previous third versions.
- Rush SwSh because it'll sell well, create Little Town Hero as a fail safe in case as well as a game that allows them to keep their money they make. Smaller groups allow you to keep more money.
- You can upgrade SwSh later on to fix all the flaws to create a definitive version- in SwSh's case contains all the Pokemon. There's enough content for one game, but potential for the third version.
- The anime's idea of showing off Pokemon that isn't in SwSh might be a way to encourage the audience to gain a liking for the new Pokemon.
- Create Diamond and Pearl Remake to fill in the gaps of SwSh, then release a final SwSh to fill in the gaps. The main selling point are the Pokemon. Generation 3 was used as an analogy.
In what world is a brand-new IP ever considered a "fail-safe" for a game studio? It's leagues riskier to create a new IP rather than continue to milk a proven formula.
Also mentioned that they do it because they don’t have to share money with TPC. Not sure about Nintendo since they publish it.
The Gen III cutoff actually wasn't GF's fault, plus all the Pokémon are still programmed into Ruby and Sapphire.
Otherwise the theory seems plausible. I'd totally buy GF being that scummy between their past actions and the current industry environment.
It wasn’t?
Yung Dramps
awesome gaming
I've been thinking about what I'm about say for a while, but I didn't feel like posting it due to not really wanting to dredge up this thread and give it more life. Seeing as that's already been done for me, I might as well speak my mind, and it isn't exactly a pretty speech.
Because maybe it's the general bitterness and cynicism that's been circulating around the fandom for months now that's finally gotten to me, but I'm seriously thinking that the whole concept of Pokemon transferring was a mistake to begin with. Remember: At one point, Gold and Silver were gonna be the last Pokemon games. Including transfer features was necessary for unobtainable Kanto Pokemon, easier with just 251 Pokemon existing in total at that point, and a cool novelty for what was supposed to be the series' conclusion at a time where it was uncertain if Pokemon had long-term franchise potential or if it was just another fad on its way out. Of course, the "fad" would go on to be a multi-billion dollar juggernaut that would endure for decades, and with this new lease on life came the mutation of transferring from a one-time bonus for RBY veterans to an untamable, ever-growing behemoth.
I would say something about how this was inevitable or that we should've seen it coming as soon as they started putting an additional price tag on the feature with Pokemon Bank, but I can't say that with a straight face, not with the memory of my first response to the news of Dexit on that faithful day of June 11th that I got during a Discord convo, not with that response being something to the effect of "Why would anyone think that? It's obviously a mistranslation." before a news article was shown to me as proof. After that and so much more grief, controversy and anger from the fanbase, I actually do think Game Freak made a stupid decision. The stupid decision to keep up this absurd expectation, the decision to saddle themselves with this unneeded burden. No other game series on the face of the planet has ever attempted something like this, and nobody ever will because to the rational developer, it's far better to work with a self-contained pool of characters and creatures, and trying to bring back all your old creations outside of major occasions like anniversaries is a waste of resources all for negligible returns on their investment.
Gen 3 was Game Freak's last chance to perform the Dexit relatively painlessly. I can see how they could've justified it now: "We feel really bad for the forced loss of Pokemon due to hardware differences between the GBA and GBC, so we're gonna abandon transferring so should a future hardware incompatibility like that happen again, we don't have to put anymore kids or veterans through that pain ever again." But no, they didn't do that, and now here they are 17 years later, finally forcing themselves to peel off that band-aid. Because every new generation with the full dex is another generation of players they could piss off, and the confidence they have shattered after propping up the expectation of that full dex is not worth investing time into cushioning with a detailed direct or video series about how difficult game development is. People are gonna be enraged no matter what you do, so get it over with as fast as possible via a simple statement in a Nintendo Treehouse. Quick and painless is no longer possible, so might as well knock out the "quick" part.
And after all of that and the news that these games are selling gangbusters anyway, I've been thinking. What if transferring was never a thing or was abandoned early on in the franchise's life? Imagine all the time that was wasted trying to make everything old compatible with the new, playtesting, debugging, spriting and later modeling. Imagine that time being put towards other aspects of the games like story and world-building and map design. Could games like XY have been improved with these redirected resources? Could classics like Platinum and Black and White 2 have been even better? This is all speculation which we'll never know the answer to, ideas that may have never came to fruition because of the absolute mess Game Freak chose to entangle themselves in instead.
Because maybe it's the general bitterness and cynicism that's been circulating around the fandom for months now that's finally gotten to me, but I'm seriously thinking that the whole concept of Pokemon transferring was a mistake to begin with. Remember: At one point, Gold and Silver were gonna be the last Pokemon games. Including transfer features was necessary for unobtainable Kanto Pokemon, easier with just 251 Pokemon existing in total at that point, and a cool novelty for what was supposed to be the series' conclusion at a time where it was uncertain if Pokemon had long-term franchise potential or if it was just another fad on its way out. Of course, the "fad" would go on to be a multi-billion dollar juggernaut that would endure for decades, and with this new lease on life came the mutation of transferring from a one-time bonus for RBY veterans to an untamable, ever-growing behemoth.
I would say something about how this was inevitable or that we should've seen it coming as soon as they started putting an additional price tag on the feature with Pokemon Bank, but I can't say that with a straight face, not with the memory of my first response to the news of Dexit on that faithful day of June 11th that I got during a Discord convo, not with that response being something to the effect of "Why would anyone think that? It's obviously a mistranslation." before a news article was shown to me as proof. After that and so much more grief, controversy and anger from the fanbase, I actually do think Game Freak made a stupid decision. The stupid decision to keep up this absurd expectation, the decision to saddle themselves with this unneeded burden. No other game series on the face of the planet has ever attempted something like this, and nobody ever will because to the rational developer, it's far better to work with a self-contained pool of characters and creatures, and trying to bring back all your old creations outside of major occasions like anniversaries is a waste of resources all for negligible returns on their investment.
Gen 3 was Game Freak's last chance to perform the Dexit relatively painlessly. I can see how they could've justified it now: "We feel really bad for the forced loss of Pokemon due to hardware differences between the GBA and GBC, so we're gonna abandon transferring so should a future hardware incompatibility like that happen again, we don't have to put anymore kids or veterans through that pain ever again." But no, they didn't do that, and now here they are 17 years later, finally forcing themselves to peel off that band-aid. Because every new generation with the full dex is another generation of players they could piss off, and the confidence they have shattered after propping up the expectation of that full dex is not worth investing time into cushioning with a detailed direct or video series about how difficult game development is. People are gonna be enraged no matter what you do, so get it over with as fast as possible via a simple statement in a Nintendo Treehouse. Quick and painless is no longer possible, so might as well knock out the "quick" part.
And after all of that and the news that these games are selling gangbusters anyway, I've been thinking. What if transferring was never a thing or was abandoned early on in the franchise's life? Imagine all the time that was wasted trying to make everything old compatible with the new, playtesting, debugging, spriting and later modeling. Imagine that time being put towards other aspects of the games like story and world-building and map design. Could games like XY have been improved with these redirected resources? Could classics like Platinum and Black and White 2 have been even better? This is all speculation which we'll never know the answer to, ideas that may have never came to fruition because of the absolute mess Game Freak chose to entangle themselves in instead.
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Look, maybe you care about Pokemon as RPGs in terms of story, characters, map design, etc. But a lot of us don't. We're here for the competitive battling aspect (that's the whole point of this site). There are MUCH better games in 2019 than Pokemon. It's after you get through all the crap that the games have become that you get to the soft center of the game: battling other people. That's why Showdown exists; to make the best part of the games readily and easily available.
If anyone should have seen this disaster coming, it should've been GF themselves. They planed poorly, they program poorly, and they pissed a lot of people off by doing something they knew the fanbase wouldnt like in a sneaky, indirect manner. Sorry, I know this post might sound rude, and don't want to offend the people here who actually give a crap about in game outfits, your rival's haircut, tree resolution, etc but you sound like a total GF apologist.
Allegedly, VGC is not as much of a mess as singles.
Anyway, I think this is an issue where only having 'casual' and 'competitive' groups can miss out on some viewpoints. As an example, let's use Magic: the Gathering player categories, 'Timmy,' 'Johnny,' and 'Spike.'
Timmy is in the 'casual' crowd. They make choices based on aesthetics and have fun just by playing the game. For SwSh, appeal to the Timmy crowd is meh. The graphics and story aren't amazing, and losing old favourites can sting, but it's still a core formula that hasn't needed much imporvement for 20+ years.
Meanwhile, Spike is the archetypal competitive player. They choose options, and get enjoyment out of, winning. Here, it really depends on which side of the fence you're on. If you're a cartridge player aiming for VGC, you have a significant quality of life boost and I've been told a reasonably balanced environment. If you're used to playing singles on Showdown, you already had teambuilding efficiency and the main mechanic should potentially be on its way out before the game is a month old. I can't claim to know the relative proportions, so let's call it even and this category mediocre as well.
So if you look at the casual side and the competitive side, SwSh is neither great nor awful. But let's talk about Johnny. Johnny is not significantly interested in appearence, nor on winning. Their enjoyment comes from exploring the game mechanics and making unique combinations. I think it's not an exaggeration to say that a significant loss of unique content is one of the worst things for a Johnny's enjoyment of the game. Now we've gone from "meh" and "meh" to "meh", "meh", and "what the heck were you on when you made this decision?" I could be biased here, leaning towards a Johnny playstyle myself, but I don't think this aspect of enjoying a game should be ignored when considering the impact cuts have.
Anyway, I think this is an issue where only having 'casual' and 'competitive' groups can miss out on some viewpoints. As an example, let's use Magic: the Gathering player categories, 'Timmy,' 'Johnny,' and 'Spike.'
Timmy is in the 'casual' crowd. They make choices based on aesthetics and have fun just by playing the game. For SwSh, appeal to the Timmy crowd is meh. The graphics and story aren't amazing, and losing old favourites can sting, but it's still a core formula that hasn't needed much imporvement for 20+ years.
Meanwhile, Spike is the archetypal competitive player. They choose options, and get enjoyment out of, winning. Here, it really depends on which side of the fence you're on. If you're a cartridge player aiming for VGC, you have a significant quality of life boost and I've been told a reasonably balanced environment. If you're used to playing singles on Showdown, you already had teambuilding efficiency and the main mechanic should potentially be on its way out before the game is a month old. I can't claim to know the relative proportions, so let's call it even and this category mediocre as well.
So if you look at the casual side and the competitive side, SwSh is neither great nor awful. But let's talk about Johnny. Johnny is not significantly interested in appearence, nor on winning. Their enjoyment comes from exploring the game mechanics and making unique combinations. I think it's not an exaggeration to say that a significant loss of unique content is one of the worst things for a Johnny's enjoyment of the game. Now we've gone from "meh" and "meh" to "meh", "meh", and "what the heck were you on when you made this decision?" I could be biased here, leaning towards a Johnny playstyle myself, but I don't think this aspect of enjoying a game should be ignored when considering the impact cuts have.
If sales numbers are anything to go off of, this game definitely appealed to Timmy. I really don’t think the downsides you mentioned mean jack shit to the average casual buyer, or at least not enough to make them not purchase.
Yung Dramps
awesome gaming
When I was discussing the hypotheticals about past games potentially being improved with transferring and compatability with old games no longer being an issue, I should've clarified that those improvements could've been competitive as well. After all, one of the most consistently praised accepts of SWSH even amongst all the controversy is the competitive improvements like easier EV training and IV breeding and a revamped, expanded TM list which increased the distributions of previously relatively rare moves like Nasty Plot, Power Whip and Heat Crash. A restricted roster also by default makes power creep much easier to tackle and even this gen we have seen new Pokemon design altered to accommodate for the removal of the constant power escalation that plagued Generations 5-7 in particular. There really isn't anything with comically high stats or an absurd toolbox this generation on par with the Tapus or the Ultra Beasts or Ash-Greninja that is really borderline unbalanced aside from maybe Dracovish and Darmanitan-Galar.
More than that though, I think you severely underestimate the amount of people who care about Pokemon as games. The bias is obvious considering what website we're on (you even admitted this yourself partially), but no matter how much we focus on the competitive side of these games or how much Pokemon's creators themselves try to push the games as ESport contenders or whatever, that side is relatively niche in the grand scheme of things. When people talk about the best games in the series or critique a new title, they often only touch upon the competitive side very briefly if at all. Look at the SWSH critiques: Graphics, animations, story, difficulty. Notice how none of these relate to competitive play, but to the games' single-player campaigns, or at least primarily stem from them (nobody complaining about animations only began to notice once they started laddering on Battle Stadium). For every person making podcasts about the current state of VGC there are many more talking about their favorite characters, Pokemon designs, regions, villains, plotlines and more.
And as for your last part... I partially agree. It was INCREDIBLY poor foresight on GF's part to prop up the National Pokedex without at least thinking to themselves "How much longer can we keep this up? Should we keep it up at all? Maybe there's a reason why not a single other games company does what we do with their long-running franchises." Hell, maybe they did actually think that at some point (we know they were already considering doing it at least as far back as Gen 7) but even if they did it certainly didn't stop this little ride to hell to took themselves on. I'm not frustrated at GF for the decision they made unlike many others in this community; I'm frustrated that they even got themselves into the situation where they had to make such a decision. That said, I'm not sure if I agree with the idea of GF trying to hide the Dexit decision from people. If they were trying to be slick willies about it they could've easily not said anything at all and snuck in the "Only Pokemon in the Galar dex can be transferred into Sword and Shield" clause in the fine print of Pokemon Home's Terms of Service or something to that effect. I'm aware there's a debate over whether this was the original intent and if that one interviewer who inquired about transferring their Pokemon from Let's Go saved us all from a greater calamity down the road, but even then I feel that Masuda or Ohmori could've given a typical vague non-answer like "Yes you can transfer Pokemon" or a "no comment" if the intent was deception. Now, could have better explanations and communications in the form of, let's say, a dedicated Direct explaining their rationale for the decision have averted the outrage from getting out of control? Perhaps, but truth be told I am incredibly skeptical considering the nature of online gaming communities and how much of a radical change this is. And I believe that was the primary motivation for how GF relayed Dexit the way they did: Skepticism that putting in the effort would help cushion the blow.
And finally, a totally unrelated question I just thought of: How will being potentially the very last games for at least a very long while, if ever, to have every single Pokemon made at the time available affect how Ultra Sun and Moon are remembered?
You mean, how fast they will be forgotten with the years passing and DS eventually going out of commission / becoming insanely rare compared to Switch.
It is just a matter of time, but with more generations coming in future, pre-Switch games will be just a shade of the past. Just a "back in my days, we only had 151, pardon, we had 800 pokemon in one game!" coming from 50 year old people which will cause the now 10 year old buying gen 15 game look at you weirdly confused and thinking you're a weirdo :P
Honestly, when I think of Gen 7, I think of SM mostly with the exceptions of the new forms and Pokémon. SM left strong impression while USM seemed like a way to fill the two year game gap. SwSh hasn’t changed my thoughts on it.
Yung Dramps
awesome gaming
So, I wanna bring up how external Pokemon media is handling Dexit: More specifically how they are flat-out ignoring it.
We already know the irony about the new anime season, which has hilariously shifted to an all-regions romp at a time where the games are permanently restricting the amount of available Pokemon for the first time in decades. Just in the most recent episode somebody was seen bringing in Turtwig on a plane to Galar, and when Ash and Gou encountered a Nickit, its national Pokedex number was displayed on their Rotom dexes.
Then there's the TCG. The first set isn't released yet, but among just the known cards of the base set we already got new cards for Regirock, Victini and Tapu Koko, legendary Pokemon which aren't even in the code for Sword and Shield.
Gotta admit, even as a Dexit defender this is kind of weird and I don't really know how to feel about it. Either the anime/TCG staff aren't communicating at all with the games people about this affair or they just don't care.
We already know the irony about the new anime season, which has hilariously shifted to an all-regions romp at a time where the games are permanently restricting the amount of available Pokemon for the first time in decades. Just in the most recent episode somebody was seen bringing in Turtwig on a plane to Galar, and when Ash and Gou encountered a Nickit, its national Pokedex number was displayed on their Rotom dexes.
Then there's the TCG. The first set isn't released yet, but among just the known cards of the base set we already got new cards for Regirock, Victini and Tapu Koko, legendary Pokemon which aren't even in the code for Sword and Shield.
Gotta admit, even as a Dexit defender this is kind of weird and I don't really know how to feel about it. Either the anime/TCG staff aren't communicating at all with the games people about this affair or they just don't care.