Dexit discussion thread

[dodiabla]

To me, it seems that the bridge to cross to get “better” Pokémon games (i.e. games with longer development times that address fan concerns, including Dexit) would be for TPC to suffer heavy revenue loss.

The only way to do that would be a boycott. And not a boycott of just SwSh (as has been discussed elsewhere on this forum, the core series is a small slice of revenue in the franchise, and mainly acts as an intro for new IP) but a boycott of everything. No buying Pokémon merchandise. No playing Pokémon Go or Masters. Not tuning into the anime. No buying the cards. And this boycott has to be worldwide.

Personally I don’t think it’s feasible (the franchise has too broad of a demographic, both in terms of age and interests) but everyone is welcome to try. I would even be willing to join in and stop my consumption at Pokémon Shield. I just have my doubts it would work.

 

[Siggu]

I'm not buying the workers did nothing wrong narrative because every interview Ohmori makes sure he says something stupid like we can't have a battle factory because no one plays after the elite 4 or when he said that there can not be difficulty settings because kids would rather play mobile games instead.

He doesn't sound like a person who wanted to do things right but shareholders told him he couldn't.

I am still hyped and i will buy the game because competitive looks great with the new mons and i like the community, but man so many things other than that look messed up.

But Ohmori is a director. He's not the guys that made the code on crunch time.

 

[Dialganet2]

To me, it seems that the bridge to cross to get “better” Pokémon games (i.e. games with longer development times that address fan concerns, including Dexit) would be for TPC to suffer heavy revenue loss.

The only way to do that would be a boycott. And not a boycott of just SwSh (as has been discussed elsewhere on this forum, the core series is a small slice of revenue in the franchise, and mainly acts as an intro for new IP) but a boycott of everything. No buying Pokémon merchandise. No playing Pokémon Go or Masters. Not tuning into the anime. No buying the cards. And this boycott has to be worldwide.

Personally I don’t think it’s feasible (the franchise has too broad of a demographic, both in terms of age and interests) but everyone is welcome to try. I would even be willing to join in and stop my consumption at Pokémon Shield. I just have my doubts it would work.

I had written another text wall, about sales prediction and which % can actually be indicative of a sizeable impact and what information is needed to make a fair assessment, but decided against posting, was way too technical and OOT. In case, drop me a PM.

In short: if one visitor of this thread out of ten is taking myself and The Manifold Curiosity stand, it will make an impact. The problem is predicting the rest of the fanbase, as you rightfully assess.
It would help to know how much main games sales and all the rest (anime, merch, Go, TCG) have had a positive/negative correlation or are independent of each other.
I can tell you this: it worked with Destiny 2 (which was a big deal in gaming at the time). It took a year, and some serious head butting, but it worked. The problem here is the broader demographic, which honestly jeopardize any attempt to predict behavior (I'm not a franchise sucker, just a main game sucker).

Be it as it may, I'm reading the first reviews, and I'm at least encouraged that despite positives evaluations (in terms of numbers) some expand on glaring issues. That's a first loud voice to hear.

 

[earl]

I had written another text wall, about sales prediction and which % can actually be indicative of a sizeable impact and what information is needed to make a fair assessment, but decided against posting, was way too technical and OOT. In case, drop me a PM.

In short: if one visitor of this thread out of ten is taking myself and The Manifold Curiosity stand, it will make an impact. The problem is predicting the rest of the fanbase, as you rightfully assess.
It would help to know how much main games sales and all the rest (anime, merch, Go, TCG) have had a positive/negative correlation or are independent of each other.
I can tell you this: it worked with Destiny 2 (which was a big deal in gaming at the time). It took a year, and some serious head butting, but it worked. The problem here is the broader demographic, which honestly jeopardize any attempt to predict behavior (I'm not a franchise sucker, just a main game sucker).

Be it as it may, I'm reading the first reviews, and I'm at least encouraged that despite positives evaluations (in terms of numbers) some expand on glaring issues. That's a first loud voice to hear.

Destiny 2’s main revenue (micro transactions and DLC) were dependent on the game, but Pokémon’s main revenue has 0 attachments to the games itself- that Glaceon plush isn’t suddenly being marketed to a smaller audience cuz no it bought the game

 

[Dialganet2]

Destiny 2’s main revenue (micro transactions and DLC) were dependent on the game, but Pokémon’s main revenue has 0 attachments to the games itself- that Glaceon plush isn’t suddenly being marketed to a smaller audience cuz no it bought the game

I know intuitively it would seem so, I was just wondering if there's any statistical proof to back it up (or refute it) because a serious conversation would require it.
For instance, if you played it, Destiny 2 - after it got hit hard first - still tried to double down on micro transactions.
More of a sidenote for a business junkie like me than anything.

 

[dodiabla]

I had written another text wall, about sales prediction and which % can actually be indicative of a sizeable impact and what information is needed to make a fair assessment, but decided against posting, was way too technical and OOT. In case, drop me a PM.

In short: if one visitor of this thread out of ten is taking myself and The Manifold Curiosity stand, it will make an impact. The problem is predicting the rest of the fanbase, as you rightfully assess.
It would help to know how much main games sales and all the rest (anime, merch, Go, TCG) have had a positive/negative correlation or are independent of each other.
I can tell you this: it worked with Destiny 2 (which was a big deal in gaming at the time). It took a year, and some serious head butting, but it worked. The problem here is the broader demographic, which honestly jeopardize any attempt to predict behavior (I'm not a franchise sucker, just a main game sucker).

Be it as it may, I'm reading the first reviews, and I'm at least encouraged that despite positives evaluations (in terms of numbers) some expand on glaring issues. That's a first loud voice to hear.

Business isn’t my field, and I have no data besides anecdote but my guess is that there are, at best, very few “franchise suckers” and that the fan base is more or less siloed to what they enjoy. I have a friend who is big into the cards (his main hobby is Magic) but hasn’t touched a Pokémon game since gen 3, and doesn’t really care about Dexit. Merchandise lives or dies by how cute it is. The anime is primarily directed at kids.

To throw another wrench into any prediction: not every consumer is a mid-teen to 30 year old who primarily makes up the people who post on this forum and on social media. They’ll also be parents/grandparents who’ll buy things and don’t really know or care about Dexit, people who haven’t played in years who are getting back into the games due to Go/Masters/etc.

Till we see sales figures two weeks from now, we won’t know if the games were a success or not.

 

[Count Bleck]

In lighter news, the fire emblem fanbase has been mellowing out the pokemon fanbase with memes like this

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1194332251837935616

 

[Karxrida]

In lighter news, the fire emblem fanbase has been mellowing out the pokemon fanbase with memes like this

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1194332251837935616

Three Houses is a good game in spite of its graphic quality. Cause the developers gave a shit and put effort into its most important aspects. Plus it still looks better.

What do Sword and Shield even have?

 

[Kami42]

Three Houses is a good game in spite of its graphic quality. Cause the developers gave a shit and put effort into its most important aspects.

What do Sword and Shield even have?

New region, new Pokémon, Wild Area, Dynamax, Gigantamax, you can make your custom trainer, cool looking characters, many quality of life changes for both, casual and competetive ... and so on.

 

[DreamPrince]

Three Houses is a good game in spite of its graphic quality. Cause the developers gave a shit and put effort into its most important aspects.

What do Sword and Shield even have?

Gamexplain praised the Pokémon Design and QOL changes for the competitive scene, praising that this is the best game for getting into it .

Unfortunately for Casual players: Dungeons are way too small, Towns are far to small to explore, and the story is pretty meh and characters get hyped only to be dropped later on . The Wild Area lacks anything to do other than raid battles and catching Pokémon and camp.

In conclusion: Great game for Competitive players, Meh for casual.

 

[Marzbar]

Reviews are in. Mixed reviews so far. IGN basically got paid to write an advertisement for SwSh and gave it 9.3. Others like Eurogamer went to town on it and wrote some scathing critiques. The last couple of paragraphs are particularly concerning and worth a read.
Metro Entertainment’s review was also very critical. https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/met...shield-review-gonna-miss-em-all-11090179/amp/
In summary though it said:

In Short: The furore over Dexit may be overblown but even without it this is an underwhelming and unambitious attempt to modernise Pokémon and expand its horizons.

Pros: The core Pokémon gameplay is as engrossing as ever and the Wild Area is a small but important step forward. Some great new pokémon designs and surprisingly fun script.

Cons: Low tech visuals and production values. Too few new features and too many old ones that are removed or smoothed over to the point of irrelevance.

Score: 7/10

 

[Worldie]

In conclusion: Great game for Competitive players, Meh for casual.

Which is as ironic as it gets, as the vocal complaints and death threats all come from hardcore players/fans.

 

[Count Bleck]

Three Houses is a good game in spite of its graphic quality. Cause the developers gave a shit and put effort into its most important aspects. Plus it still looks better.

What do Sword and Shield even have?

While there are a number of ways to respond to this, im interested in what you consider the most important aspects are. Because competitively, they've streamlined a ton of grinding sores. Casual wise there is camps, raids, and customization options. Design wise there a bunch of fun nee pokemon designs.

 

[Blazade]

Well that's because while the QoL changes make it "easier to get into competitive" in the sense that you don't need to know how to breed/EV train properly or have resources from past games to facilitate that process, it's not actually any faster.

Hyper Training still needs level 100, bottle caps and nature mints are BP-expensive (not to mention ability capsules are still crazy too), you still have to breed the egg moves onto something once before doing the transfer to a non bred mon, EV training with SOS/hordes was faster than grinding money for vitamins, etc. Given that you breed, nature breeding is free.

The reason we have these QoL increases is because gigantimax pokemon have to be caught from rare raids. I'm very happy we have the changes given that we have to do this, mind you, but it feels like being given a snow shovel at Christmas and being told to clear the front yard.

You substitute the busywork of having to figure out the arcane mechanics and then be done quickly for one where you pretty much know what to do and have to put in the time grinding. Not unlike Ultra Space replacing hidden locations for legends you had to look up.

 

[MrHands]

Which is as ironic as it gets, as the vocal complaints and death threats all come from hardcore players/fans.

By reducing the number of Pokemon available and all but eliminating the necessity of breeding Gamefreak has somewhat ironically killed my interest in post game for me. While I'm happy we can change natures, don't have to worry about hidden power, and can edit IVs it ends up eliminating any long term replay I could have had as a breeder.

What is there to do besides grind battle tower? Curbstomp some level 60 raid battles for the 100th time?

 

[Worldie]

What is there to do besides grind battle tower? Curbstomp some level 60 raid battles for the 100th time?

I am afraid no pokemon game has had any other "postgame activity" other than genning breeding for competitive (you really think VGC players actually bred their mons?), do the facility or a minor postgame story.

.... but if you're telling me that walking for hours in front of the daycare waiting to hatch the mon with correct Hidden power which also didn't fail to get HA was more fun, I am afraid we have a diverging opinion :P

And if you really miss that, remember you have to still pass by that to get shinyes at least ;)

 

[Count Bleck]

By reducing the number of Pokemon available and all but eliminating the necessity of breeding Gamefreak has somewhat ironically killed my interest in post game for me. While I'm happy we can change natures, don't have to worry about hidden power, and can edit IVs it ends up eliminating any long term replay I could have had as a breeder.

What is there to do besides grind battle tower? Curbstomp some level 60 raid battles for the 100th time?

One of GFs stated goals was to make competitive more accessible. The end game to all your exploration is to take up all those TRs you got from raids, breed up some powerful teams and take to the online vs. Of course, the problem with that is Showdowns very existence...if you dont care about the official league formats i guess you kinda neuter enjoyment from the cartridges...

 

[Pyritie]

What is there to do besides grind battle tower?

do something more productive with your time, maybe?

 

[MrHands]

do something more productive with your time, maybe?

Yeah but not when I'm stuck at the airport :(

 

[Worldie]

Yeah but not when I'm stuck at the airport :(

Allow me to let you know the Switch has this marvelous capacity of holding more than one game in their memory.... ;)

 

[MrHands]

Allow me to let you know the Switch has this marvelous capacity of holding more than one game in their memory.... ;)

Which is kind of my point. Pokemon is becoming a "play it once then sell it to Gamestop" kind of deal.

 

[Worldie]

Which is kind of my point. Pokemon is becoming a "play it once then sell it to Gamestop" kind of deal.

I'll surprise you with something more.... it already was for lot of casual players.

The "silent majority", the people that aren't on smogon or reddit, the kids that don't even know what they are and the parents that bought the game for them, never touched the postgame, played the story and then never loaded it again. They also never had Bank subscription, never transferred old pokemon, never cared for the graphic quality.

It's the same people that will constitute the 9kk+ sales of this game. Who do you think bought Let's Go? Let's Go still sold 10 million copies, despite all the hate and dislike it received on boards.

 

[Yung Dramps]

I'll surprise you with something more.... it already was for lot of casual players.

The "silent majority", the people that aren't on smogon or reddit, the kids that don't even know what they are and the parents that bought the game for them, never touched the postgame, played the story and then never loaded it again. They also never had Bank subscription, never transferred old pokemon, never cared for the graphic quality.

It's the same people that will constitute the 9kk+ sales of this game. Who do you think bought Let's Go? Let's Go still sold 10 million copies, despite all the hate and dislike it received on boards.

Another thing I am curious about: Are there tangible statistics that not many people transfer Pokemon or do postgame activities? Because unless those exist, assumptions about either's importance and relevance to the playerbase is baseless from both sides.

 

[MrHands]

I'll surprise you with something more.... it already was for lot of casual players.

The "silent majority", the people that aren't on smogon or reddit, the kids that don't even know what they are and the parents that bought the game for them, never touched the postgame, played the story and then never loaded it again. They also never had Bank subscription, never transferred old pokemon, never cared for the graphic quality.

It's the same people that will constitute the 9kk+ sales of this game. Who do you think bought Let's Go? Let's Go still sold 10 million copies, despite all the hate and dislike it received on boards.

Yeah. The sad truth is unless sales drop massively it's just cost effective for gamefreak to pump out medium quality games and cash in on those millions of kids who name their in-game character Ash.

 

[Worldie]

Another thing I am curious about: Are there tangible statistics that not many people transfer Pokemon or do postgame activities? Because unless those exist, assumptions about either's importance and relevance to the playerbase is baseless from both sides.

Tangible? Not that i know sadly.

However, both USUM and Let's Go recently got attacked in every possible way by the hardcore community, yet the sales didn't falter. Neither did match SM, but both provided solid numbers, and Let's Go is still pretty high on the Switch sold games ranks to this day.

You can consider it anecdotal obviously, but facts speak for now, and I have little reason to think this'll change for SwSh. I do expect it to break sales records.