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

Now, in regards to the other user whose name I don't remember. "Catch them all is an american thing, it doesn't exist in Japan, so it's value in the world is zero". Something about those lines. Sure dude.

Im sorry but North America is not the World. Here, in Spain, "Gotta Catch Them All" is also the catchphrase the series is known for ("¡Hazte con todos!), so is in Latin America, which is massive. And I'm pretty sure its the same in, at least, all Europe. So yes. If "Gotta Catch Them All" is a thing in literally the entire world EXCEPT Japan, it has an impact and it doesn't matter if it is or not a thing in Japan. Pokémon is not Japan, Pokémon is a worldwide sucess, but ey, if you want to believe that just because in Japan it isn't a thing it shouldn't have an impact, even if it is a thing in the entire world outside Japan, sure.
I'll happily let you know that Japan also got livid, especially when it is implied that Masuda meant this as ongoing policy (although at least they let out more sad anguish than outright threats). I don't know the relevance of that nominal phrase as it seems like even it seems forgotten by their western branch nowadays, but this obviously don't sit well with everyone worldwide.
 
Now, changing topics a little, at least it seems that the online features have improved noticeably compared to Gen VII (although that's not exactly a big feat).
The complete removal of Plaza and apparently going back to a more approachable "anywhere online" is possibly one of the best updates.
Also, I like how they maintained one of the plaza features: the trainers you recently interacted with might randomly show in the Wild Area, do their stuff, and even give you items. It's pretty fancy.
 
Completely on separate note from the concern of the Pokedex.
Judging by some tweets going around from people who played the Demo, the Dynamaxed moves barely have a "jump" in power from the base move used, rather the big deal is the added effect (not surprising actually, at the showcase the Raid Steelix used Max rockwhatever off Rock Tomb, and barely did 20% hp of the Ludicolo).

Also, the HP changes do seem to keep the % when reverting the Dynamax.
 
Completely on separate note from the concern of the Pokedex.
Judging by some tweets going around from people who played the Demo, the Dynamaxed moves barely have a "jump" in power from the base move used, rather the big deal is the added effect (not surprising actually, at the showcase the Raid Steelix used Max rockwhatever off Rock Tomb, and barely did 20% hp of the Ludicolo).

Also, the HP changes do seem to keep the % when reverting the Dynamax.
IIRC, the Steelix had been burned and Reflect had been put up already when that happened?
 
This is going to be my last post on this topic, as it looks like we're getting more and more evidence that Pokemon absence is going to be the official policy going forward.

Pokemon is a 24 year old franchise. So far there are 820-ish Pokemon. Just Pokemon, not forms, not megas, not shinies, and certainly not special editions (looking at you Vivillon and Hat-Pickachu). This is a franchise that is beloved by millions of people, most of them young adults/teenagers. It's also a franchise that makes billions of dollars in profit, and not just from the games, but from cards, movies, merchandise, etc.

With all that being said, I think that we, as fans, are really underestimating the clutter that builds up over such a long run with so many assets. Pokemon isn't Mario or Zelda where the story and gameplay are centered on a titular character that gets thrown in a new environment with new enemies that he/she has to fight or think their way out of. Its a franchise based on capturing cutesy monsters, training them up, and then battling with your friends. Each new generation requires new mons, new abilities, new items, and new areas to keep the franchise going, and that quality, the freshness that's added to Pokemon every 2-3 years, has been the crux of its success.

But now, 24 years into it, I can't help but feel that the quality that made Pokemon successful is starting to become a burden. Hypothetically, let's say the Pokemon franchise keeps going for another 11 years, for a grand total of 35. How many Pokemon do we think we'll be at by then? 1200? 1400? I have no doubt that whatever console the games will be on at that point could handle all the models, animations, dex entries, etc. But could the players? Would any of us, as an 8-10 year old in 2030, be willing to approach such a behemoth and try to capture every single pokemon, if they are available?

Now there are things GF could do to prevent the numbers from climbing so high. They could introduce about 50 new pokemon each generation. They could wait to release a new generation every 5 years. They could remake all the previous games for the Switch so that people can play with their favorite pokemon on the newest console with the newest graphics. But would that make the majority of fans and players happy? As much as I love this franchise, it is plainly obvious you can't make everyone happy, no matter how you try. For example, let's take Megas. When they were introduced, people bemoaned the mechanic and cried that they should have just given regular evolutions to most of those mons. Then people bemoaned that their favorite pokemon didn't get a mega when it clearly deserved one for reason XYZ. Then people groaned that Megas are going to be present in Gen VII. THEN people cried that no new Megas were going to be created going forward. At this point, any change or retention of an aspect to draw/keep customers feels like its going to lose customers who dislike it.

I think that a lot of us have been playing these games since the near beginning, and that's a feat to cherish and be proud of. But at some point, I think we have to ask ourselves a hard question: "Do these games spark the same amount of joy and love in kids now that they did when I was little?". Because, at the end of the day, Pokemon is a kids game. Its an imaginary, virtual, beetle fight you would get in with your friends on the playground. So maybe we won't be able to bring our favorite 15 year old beetle to the playground to show it off and battle with it. Maybe that fact
deserves the ire that GF and Nintendo are getting, and maybe, just maybe, it deserves to be grieved over. Maybe, to many of us, this grief is so intense that we may need to step away from the series for a bit. That's okay. Change isn't easy, nor is it always for the best.

GameFreak is taking a gamble, and a large one at that, that, at the beginning of a new generation on a new system (which for the first time, will be a console), we won't have access to every pokemon. Whatever the reason for this is, I have doubts their going to change their minds 5 months out from release, no matter the outcry. So maybe this gamble backfires, the games tank, and we go back to the same old same old in the next installment. Or maybe SwSh do as well as the other games, if not better, and this becomes our new normal. At this point, its hard to say. I think alot of us are freaking out that our favorite/hard-earned Pokemon might not be in the games. There's still a lot we do not know, but as we find out, in the coming months, which Pokemon are present and which are not, I think most of the player base will calm down and adjust. At least, that's my hope. I'm going to give this gamble a chance, and hope that whatever payoff (animations, better battling, better story) we get is worth the sacrifice. I sincerely hope you all do too.
 
IIRC, the Steelix had been burned and Reflect had been put up already when that happened?
Yeah definitely but I was referring to the increase in base power over the base move, not to the power itself.

Compare the Max Rockslide damage it does on Ludicolo, to the Sand Tomb it uses a couple turns later (at that point he got a Curse off), and you see it does similar damage, so my guess is that the BP of Max Rockslide is actually not much more than 10-20 higher than Rock Tomb or Rock Smash (whichever is used as base attack)

Of course if he wasnt burned, at -1, and through Reflect, it probably would have deleted both pokemon :P
 

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So our old friend Jibaku answered a question of mine on twitter!


Seems like Dynamax Attacks don't have a big base power difference like say, Z moves did. Since we know that the dynamax moves have some crazy effects like setting up terrains and weather, combined with him also mentioning in another tweet that Dynamaxing only seems to buff HP defensively, and its clear the Max Attacks are the big selling point here. Im guessing with potentially some stuff like the Tapus and Mega Charizard Y getting cut, Dynamaxing may lead to a new kind of "weather war" so to speak. Or at least a terrain war.

Oh also another thing: Seems like everything is holding Everstones in the demo, so you do NOT need items to Dynamax! Could be scary with stuff like choiced mons.
 
For a change from this whole Dexit debacle....

The raid page mentions the boss' ability to supress raider mon's ability and revert stat changes, on top of attacking twice per turn (to compensate it being 4v1. Depending on how it works, if said stat reverting is taking a (boss' half-)turn, this can be good strat to use Def/SpDef reducing move like fast Fake Tears to blow holes in a turn and have the boss try to mend it by not-Mist, reducing the casualty a little or suffer the increased beatdown.

They said reverting stat changes (most of us will think stat buffs/debuffs), but not specific things like Reflect/Light Screen/Aurora Veil, status (written and non-volatile like flinch, confused, infatuation, etc.) and so on. These things may be viable choice, especially when we know by base stats the raid boss' mostly physical or special oriented.

As (probably former) avid raider in GO, I'm curious to see the 'meta' in Max raiding here.

Also, again, is there any more information about the raid battles? Like time limit? Victory/Defeat conditions? Pokemon to be brought there? I had a feeling of "only one mon per trainer per raid" since cheering others when you lost (but others haven't yet) is a thing.
EDIT: I take Serebii. There are limits like turn taken (10 turn, unsure if flat or varied depending on raid boss). Hoo boy, so we really have to know what we are doing here so we can beat the clock, although this do involve more strategy than GO's ol' beating; things like Fake Tears+3 SpA gang up works.
Serebii haven't said limit of Pokemon to bring, so for now, with the turn limit mentioned I assume you can bring 6 or at least more than 1.
I also want to know if we know the Pokemon we will raid or not, as, same to GO, exploiting boss' weakness (especially double weakness) will be an absolute must (e.g. Hydreigon? Must bring Sylveon etc.)

Depending on how they inflate the boss' HP and AI partner's competence, I hope this is at least soloable with strong enough mon.

I'll look forward the Pokemon Max raid viability list... assuming I do decide to get it.
 
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EDIT: I take Serebii. There are limits like turn taken (10 turn, unsure if flat or varied depending on raid boss). Hoo boy, so we really have to know what we are doing here so we can beat the clock, although this do involve more strategy than GO's ol' beating; things like Fake Tears+3 SpA gang up works.
Serebii haven't said limit of Pokemon to bring, so for now, with the turn limit mentioned I assume you can bring 6 or at least more than 1.
The showcase video shown that each player has to choose *ONE* pokemon each, and they can't swap it. Once all 4 pokemon die it's game over.
 
F.E.A.R might be a really good tactic against Max Raid Pokemon.
I doubt FEAR even works. The Boss' HP is inflated like those in Pokemon GO. Making it fall to FEAR would be very insulting feature design. Also, the boss can target it twice per turn anyway, although two FEAR user may still break that.

I'm thinking that they would just make percentage-based attacks unusable, as that'd bypass the boss' HP too easily.
The showcase video shown that each player has to choose *ONE* pokemon each, and they can't swap it. Once all 4 pokemon die it's game over.
Ah thanks for the info. So we will want not only a high DPT Pokemon, but those who can still survive the beatdown too. This will be interesting to make raid builds. Bulky Pokemon will be favoured, and so things like Assault Vest.


Hmm... I'll want to know about status ailments like Poison. Particularly Toxic. Any kind of percentage damage seems to be good tactics (although with Toxic normally causing 15/16 HP loss already just in 5 turns make me think they'd think ahead of that too.)
 
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Ah thanks for the info. So we will want not only a high DPT Pokemon, but those who can still survive the beatdown too. This will be interesting to make raid builds. Bulky Pokemon will be favoured, and so things like Assault Vest.
Sorta.

The showcase had a dedicated Togekiss with defensive moves and Follow Me. A setup with a defensive / utility pokemons which would allow your dynamaxed pokemon to tackle the boss more easily.

Now, that's purely looking at that one Steelix boss which appeared to be low difficulty / level, obviously, plus being a slow Pokemon it made easy to just status / punch him to death. They shown much faster Pokemon having Dynamaxed raids (like Weavile), so different approaches per raid might be necessary.
 
I get the need for the franchise to evolve and face the realities that each generation is a burden. In some ways, the best analogy might be to Magic the Gathering. New sets come and take old sets out of circulation, when they do – we get reprints. There isn’t anything fundamentally wrong about Pokémon wanting to have a more controlled environment (battles and such) and a chance to focus on the game without worrying about every legacy feature.

The issue thus far is in the how they plan to do it.

Pokémon Home is a mobile game for iOS, Android, and Switch. It’s supposed to be where all of our Pokémon live. Those we put in from Sword and Shield can be taken out and those that we can’t will be stuck there until they can. As it stands, they’re wanting us to move things from Bank (that can still be used in USUM) and LGPE to a new format where they’re just bits of data in the cloud. But there is also the risk that once service for Pokémon Bank dies (and it will if the DS is any indication), we won’t be able to move anything up.

What I’d personally want is something to interact with them and something that doesn’t just live in the cloud. If there was a version of My Pokémon Ranch (using the better modern assets) that let you interact with and enter into unrated battles with any of your “legacy” Pokémon (even if they can’t learn new moves or be trained).
 
Sorta.

The showcase had a dedicated Togekiss with defensive moves and Follow Me. A setup with a defensive / utility pokemons which would allow your dynamaxed pokemon to tackle the boss more easily.

Now, that's purely looking at that one Steelix boss which appeared to be low difficulty / level, obviously, plus being a slow Pokemon it made easy to just status / punch him to death. They shown much faster Pokemon having Dynamaxed raids (like Weavile), so different approaches per raid might be necessary.
True, of course, different boss will require different matchup and probably even set tactics. Things like Weavile would have its HP bar deleted quickly by the likes of Lucario. Some mon may be walled and countered hard that simply bringing it and doing ol' beating would keel it, while others probably require more careful approach (such as antiraid-coverage-equipped Hydreigon/other offensive behemoths, things with more bulk and less exploitable weaknesses like Snorlax). Hmm... this is one interesting PvE aspect I like to tinker about. I can think of running support Vaporeon armed with the likes of Fake Tears/Helping Hand/Toxic. And, as of PokeGO, the best DPT dealer of each type.
Setting advantageous multipliers would be crucial too, like setting Psycho Terrain in Psychic-weak bosses, Elec Terrain against Gyarados, aformentioned Fake Tears/other Def debuff, etc akin to a MMORPG raid with player's various classes and roles.
 
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