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

For me, it's because at its core, Pokémon is still a game for 10-year old kids. That's why Ash is eternally 10. That's why this is the general age for Pokémon trainers. So even though there are lots of complicated things, they don't want paralysis by the excess of options for those kids.

They do think of competitive, obviously but we are never going to be their main focus.
I actually undestand that, despite it being (probably) the most difficult tactic game ever, if you think about it. However, I cannot remotely accept this excuse, and I think we as a community of players shouldn't either.

And it's not about competitive, not always. Exp sharing should be an option, not the standard, for progression as well. Let me choose how to train my team if I can. Maybe I want a mon to stagnate a little bit to a level, why needlessly force me to box it?

GF purposefully withholds information about how the game works from all of its audience. If the games are supposed to be for 10 year olds, why did they implement the convoluted Ivs/Evs/Nature mechanic and kept it secret? It is basically the counterpart of athletes' genetic skills/training/attitude trifecta, mind you. Plus Egg Moves?
And I doubt that we could risk the younger audience suffer from paralysis by analysis if only a couple of in-game NPCs explained all of the above. Like, being more straightforward instead of stingy to sell guides (in a world where internet exists).
If a friend of mine and I, at 13, with no internet, managed to figure out how battle tower trainers' Walrein had Rock Slide and Earthquake (hello, breeding with Camerupt), anybody today could.

Just give more options and explain things. It's actually far more consumer friendly than their add and remove syndrome, keep obscure mechanics... well, obscure.
 

earl

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Given they want to allow your in game team to be competitively viable, why are we assuming EV share mechanics at the moment? We have nothing near a confirmation for it on either end so both sides are arguing a hypothetical.

did let’s go have EV’s or anything of the kind that was mass shared when battling?
 
Honestly, if they're shifting to the experience mecanics, they should remove EV yields for defeating pokémon and replace it with "EV Candies" or something like that. For a good reason: It would be more intuitive to small children to grind for ev's and make their Competitive pokémon. Also, who never forgot that alakazam in your party when you're EC training for Atk, for example.
 
Honestly, if they're shifting to the experience mecanics, they should remove EV yields for defeating pokémon and replace it with "EV Candies" or something like that. For a good reason: It would be more intuitive to small children to grind for ev's and make their Competitive pokémon. Also, who never forgot that alakazam in your party when you're EC training for Atk, for example.
We already have items to control EVs easily. They could just increase the availability of Wings and remove the limit of 100 EVs for Vitamins, and that would be all the Efforting we'd need.
 
We already have items to control EVs easily. They could just increase the availability of Wings and remove the limit of 100 EVs for Vitamins, and that would be all the Efforting we'd need.
Increase availability and increase their effect to 4 EVs per Wing.

Heck, if they want to make it more accessible, they could also simply change EV yield to multiples of 4. It works at level 50, and that's how Level 3 Evelup Island provides EVs.
 
If the last two generations prove anything, it's that GameFreak likes to tinker, for better or for worse, with the Pokemon franchise, and then deal with the fallout, if they want to, in the next gen. Some changes, in my opinion (HM removal, being able to re-use TMs, Regional Variants) have been good, and some (Dexit, Megas, dropped storylines/3rd versions, the movement away from Gyms) have been controversial or hated by fans.

At this point, I wouldn't assume most anything about the games besides what has been revealed. I would include typings, battle mechanics, evolution methods, and transportation methods, among many other things under that umbrella. All we know is that you get to choose a F/W/G starter, capture pokemon through battling them, get rivals and NPCs to battle, traverse a Wild Area where you can camp and make curry, and compete in stadiums. The lack of news or credible leaks, especially this close to release, isn't helping, and frankly, is bordering on frustrating. GameFreak feels like a new generation on a new (main) console is a time to liberate yourself and explore new avenues (And I agree with them on this!) to breathe life into a near 24 year old franchise. I just wish they weren't keeping us all in the dark about everything till the curtain drops.

With all that said, the one constant in all the Pokemon games in all those years is the hand-holding, which does seem to be getting worse as time goes on. Making pokemon that have a type advantage available right before a gym, having near mandatory tutorials for every game aspect, gym leaders being constrained to a certain number of pokemon (while you get to use all 6), Pokémon-Amie making your pokemon land more crits while dodging has really dumbed the games down, to the point where it feels like the target audience should be around 7 instead of 10 (not to mention the full grown adults that play). If they continue to lower the bar of entry by making Exp Share mandatory or relegating EVs to candies or whatever, they are free to do so. Again, I just wish we would be told a bit more beforehand, or at the very least have an option to skip/turn off all the hand-holding that make the franchise obnoxious to anyone who isn't playing for the first time.
 
Increase availability and increase their effect to 4 EVs per Wing.

Heck, if they want to make it more accessible, they could also simply change EV yield to multiples of 4. It works at level 50, and that's how Level 3 Evelup Island provides EVs.
Iirc, 4 is only for 4 IVs. After 4 IVs, you have to be a multiple of 8+4 to have an effect at level 50, so after 4, it's 12 (-4, it's a multiple of 8)
 

Merritt

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But 8 and 12 are multiples of 4 so it still works.

Not sure about formats under Level 50 like Little Cup though.
The formula for determining stats takes the EV value, divides by 4, and floors it before it affects anything else. As such, regardless of level, EVs will only have an effect in multiples of 4.
 
GF purposefully withholds information about how the game works from all of its audience. If the games are supposed to be for 10 year olds, why did they implement the convoluted Ivs/Evs/Nature mechanic and kept it secret? It is basically the counterpart of athletes' genetic skills/training/attitude trifecta, mind you. Plus Egg Moves?
And I doubt that we could risk the younger audience suffer from paralysis by analysis if only a couple of in-game NPCs explained all of the above. Like, being more straightforward instead of stingy to sell guides (in a world where internet exists).
If a friend of mine and I, at 13, with no internet, managed to figure out how battle tower trainers' Walrein had Rock Slide and Earthquake (hello, breeding with Camerupt), anybody today could.
Because knowing those things isn't necessary to beat the game. I'm sure nudging the minority of players who are interested in anything beyond that towards the Internet where they can find communities of like-minded players does more for Gamefreak's sales numbers than any strategy guide or random NPC would.
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
GameFreak feels like a new generation on a new (main) console is a time to liberate yourself and explore new avenues (And I agree with them on this!) to breathe life into a near 24 year old franchise. I just wish they weren't keeping us all in the dark about everything till the curtain drops.
It seems like they are over-course correcting. They must've gotten so many complaints about revealing too much to where they said "Fuck it, this time we're gonna keep everything under wraps". I appreciate the effort, but I can understand why some are frustrated.

Holy mother of fuck. I don't know whether the screw-up was on GameInformer's end or Game Freak's fault, but someone's getting fired for this. If the former, this may have cost them future exclusive interview opportunities with Game Freak, maybe even other parts of Nintendo as a whole.

EDIT: Just read the part about the lore still stating there are 18. Perhaps not all hope is lost...?
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
Don't lose hope entirely, everyone. After all, we still know the lore at least mentions 18 gyms existing as well as the major and minor leagues, details which are totally unnecessary to include for a game with the standard 8 gym structure unless they're hinting towards something. There's still a chance we could have extra optional gym leaders to fight, even if they're just standing in random houses with no gyms built around them. It's also impossible for each game to have a totally unique set of 8, and even if they somehow do that's still 2 short of the number given in the lore.

More importantly: Do not use this as pretense to ramp up the hatred on Game Freak themselves. GameInformer seems more and more like they were the ones who screwed the pooch. Even if the interviewees gave them false/vague info, it should've been their responsibility to clarify and ask more questions on such potential bombshell news.
 
It seems like they are over-course correcting. They must've gotten so many complaints about revealing too much to where they said "Fuck it, this time we're gonna keep everything under wraps". I appreciate the effort, but I can understand why some are frustrated.



Holy mother of fuck. I don't know whether the screw-up was on GameInformer's end or Game Freak's fault, but someone's getting fired for this. If the former, this may have cost them future exclusive interview opportunities with Game Freak, maybe even other parts of Nintendo as a whole.

EDIT: Just read the part about the lore still stating there are 18. Perhaps not all hope is lost...?
If this doesn't sum up the video game industry today I don't know what does. This magazine gets an 'exclusive' interview (probably helped by the fact that they seem to have given Let's Go higher reviews than anyone else) where they are able to ask some softball questions and get evasive non-answers, and when one of those non-answers is worded ambiguously enough to confuse people, the instant fanboy reaction is "Wow someone's head is gonna roll for getting that wrong! Maybe never let them interview Gamefreak or Nintendo ever again." Trust me, the kind of people who would get hired to work for GameInformer magazine want nothing more than to portray Pokemon and other big video game franchises in the best light possible (without being totally obvious like '9.5/10 this game is a classic' for every single game) so they can continue to get invited to exclusive events.

They asked what some differences between Sword and Shield would be (again not exactly a hard-hitting question) and since "some of the gyms will be different and there will be some version-exclusive Pokemon" is just the same old stuff from a Pokemon game at this point, GF got cute in terms of trying to oversell the differences/throw in a little lore and gave a confusing answer in the process. There will be between 8 and 18 gyms in the games, and there will just be a Ghost gym in one game where the Fighting gym is in the other game with no plot differences between the two.
 
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Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
If this doesn't sum up the video game industry today I don't know what does. This magazine gets an 'exclusive' interview (probably helped by the fact that they seem to have given Let's Go higher reviews than anyone else) where they are able to ask some softball questions and get evasive non-answers, and when one of those non-answers is worded ambiguously enough to confuse people, the instant fanboy reaction is "Wow someone's head is gonna roll for getting that wrong! Maybe never let them interview Gamefreak or Nintendo ever again." Trust me, the kind of people who would get hired to work for GameInformer magazine want nothing more than to portray Pokemon and other big video game franchises in the best light possible (without being totally obvious like '9.5/10 this game is a classic' for every single game) so they can continue to get invited to exclusive events.

They asked what some differences between Sword and Shield would be (again not exactly a hard-hitting question) and since "some of the gyms will be different and there will be some version-exclusive Pokemon" is just the same old stuff from a Pokemon game at this point, GF got cute in terms of trying to oversell the differences/throw in a little lore and gave a confusing answer in the process. There will be between 8 and 18 gyms in the games, and there will just be a Ghost gym in one game where the Fighting gym is in the other game with no plot differences between the two.
One thing's for sure, even if nobody gets punished for this, this is gonna suck hard for GI's credibility. They have been having tough times recently with layoffs a plenty and regional divisions such as their Australian branch being shut down, so this gaffe won't help them on that front. It's also a huge damper to have this unfortunate reveal come out just a day before a big livestream. Maybe it's better to have it before the news drop than killing the hype afterward, though...

If I gotta look on the bright side, it seems like the majority of the fanbase is quelling their rage boner and putting the blame straight on GameInformer for this big goof instead of GF.
 
One thing's for sure, even if nobody gets punished for this, this is gonna suck hard for GI's credibility. They have been having tough times recently with layoffs a plenty and regional divisions such as their Australian branch being shut down, so this gaffe won't help them on that front. It's also a huge damper to have this unfortunate reveal come out just a day before a big livestream. Maybe it's better to have it before the news drop than killing the hype afterward, though...

If I gotta look on the bright side, it seems like the majority of the fanbase is quelling their rage boner and putting the blame straight on GameInformer for this big goof instead of GF.
The tough times would be more part of a larger cultural trend where we have a brand-humping, celebrity-humping culture that allows these powerful entities to dictate the story on their own terms and villainize 'the media' (even something like the video game media which has traditionally just been an additional PR arm for the industry) for anything other than pure cheerleading and massive tech platforms such as Google and Facebook have squeezed newspapers and magazines out of ad revenue; like it frankly takes an impressive amount of myopia for you to not realize that this is happening across the board rather than a just punishment to some random video game publication for not making Pokemon look like the best media franchise EVAR by daring to interpret some ambiguous spin answer the same way anyone else would have.

Q: What are the differences between the two games?

truthful A: Just the same old bare minimum cosmetic differences like a gym or two is different and not having all the Pokemon in one game so you're forced to buy the other game or pay for an online subscription to get the 'complete' experience.

spin A: A couple of the gyms are different. We like to imagine this is because in the Galar region there is a major league and a minor league and of the 18 different gyms, there will be different types in the major leagues at different times, which is why for example one version has a fighting gym and the other version has a ghost gym.

So basically they just brought up some lore thing that doesn't even show up in the game to make it seem like they were doing something new (oh, a couple of the gyms are different because it's like soccer with different leagues! That's fitting because it's in England and is totally different than how you arbitrarily fight a totem Raticate in one game and totem Gumshoos in the other), which was just confusing and had nothing to do with the question that was asked. With how many vague no-comment type answers there were, it's hard to blame anyone for taking an answer about how there are 18 different gyms and major and minor leagues at face value.
 

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