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

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.

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.)
Another thing about FEAR tactics is the shield Steelix put on at 50% health, meaning that the shield could be a crossroad of Raid fights. That would render FEAR tactics moot because, in such a scenario a Mon like Steelix could:

  1. Attack twice the FEAR mon/mons, getting them to 1 HP;
  2. Sandstorm kicks in;
  3. FEAR mon brings it down to 50% HP and shield
  4. Sandstorm kills a mon
In the demo, Steelix was immediately Intimidated, then Togekiss used Reflect, and Ludicolo burnt it. Moreover, it used fairly weak attacks like Sand Tomb instead of, say, Earthquake. A very defensive-like strategy against a mon that got burnt, to boot.

What I mean is that one trick ponies like FEAR may work in the immediate but could cost you 1-2 mons in the first 1-2 turns, and then it's probably desperation time: as in every Raid game, the likelihood of succeeding could very well be strongly tied to how many of the raiding party manage to survive consistently. Food for thought given the fragmented info we have.

As I said in a previous post of mine, I disliked Dynamax as an idea for gyms and the like. But for Raid battles it looks like a neat progress from Totem encounters.
 
As I said in a previous post of mine, I disliked Dynamax as an idea for gyms and the like. But for Raid battles it looks like a neat progress from Totem encounters.
I'd take this one step further, I don't mind Dynamax for Raids or Gyms, as they both will pose a challenge we've been lacking. I just think it looks a bit silly and truly hope it won't be outside of those two places (still determining how I feel about it in competitive...)
 
I'm finding it hard to come to terms with, but the pokedex limitation might be what causes me to quit pokemon altogether. It would be a huge loss for me, as I loved the Sun and Moon series and was happy with how gen 8 was going up till that point.

But here is the thing, I spent hundreds of hours on USUM breeding and rasing different pokemon to level 50 or 100, just so that I can try out new teams and strategies on the battle tree or online. It's what keeps the game interesting to me well beyond the end of the story and post game. But if game freak have no intention of allowing all pokemon into a single game again, then my favourite aspect of the game is gone. It looks like USUM will be my last pokemon game until something changes (let's go was a train wreak I had no plans on buying) , as the best form of protest is to stop investing into the franchise. In the meantime I will complain as much as possible in the hope game freak change their minds. I suspect there are many other adult gamers such as myself who have a similar point of view.
 
I seriously don't get why people are happy and support that Nintendo/Gamefreak are reducing the # of Pokemon transferable in Gen 8

The fact of the matter is, you're paying more money to get less content. This has been an infuriating trend with Pokemon as of late, they remove content and pass it off as a "feature" or a "necessity". The reality is, they know how stupidly gullible this community is, that they can get away with anything since whales will just buy it anyway.

It doesn't matter if you feel that there's a glut in the # of Pokemon, or items, or whatever. Or if you think Pokemon is "just a kids game" so they don't have to cater to their veteran playerbase. Nor does it matter if they plan on adding the Pokemon back in future installments/DLC. You're giving a multi billion dollar company a pass to sell you less and pad their bottom line. It's just downright anti-consumer.

Nintendo has, for a long time, been in the realm of terrible publishing/dev companies such as EA and Activison. However, unlike other gaming companies, there's a lot of nostalgia wrapped up in their products and they always mange to sell products with a smile (and far less condescending rhetoric). So they get away with things get hate in regards to other companies. Furthermore, they'll keep doing it beacuse consumers still vote with their wallets to support their terrible behavior.

They don't deserve your pity or compassion, nor do they deserve your money. I could not, for the life of me, buy USUM beacuse of how bad they have acted (despite severely wanting access to Move Tutors). I didn't bother to purchase a Switch, again beacuse there are better games and companies out there that deserve my money more. I'm probably passing Gen 8 to, since they seem adamant on being anti-consumer.

I haven't been on Smogon in ages or played any Pokemon (and I only came online to look at the discourse around Gen 8). This has nothing to do with the Smogon community, and everything to do with how poor Pokemon has been as of late. I can't touch this game without just hating myself for playing it.

Don't give Pokemon a pass on this issue. They don't deserve it.
 
I'd take this one step further, I don't mind Dynamax for Raids or Gyms, as they both will pose a challenge we've been lacking. I just think it looks a bit silly and truly hope it won't be outside of those two places (still determining how I feel about it in competitive...)
The wording on all the announcements, website descriptions and mechanic itself shows it can only be used in Gyms and raids.
(And most likely competitive battles / postgame facilities as they are usually played in arenas as well)

You won't be able to use Dynamax in regular encounters / trainer battles.
 
Honestly, I am neutral on this. I honestly don't see Pokemon able to continue for very long, especially once it hits +1000 Pokemon. If GameFreak did this in the mind of balancing I'd be hype. They just need to make sure fan favorites are in.

However, I know GameFreak sucks at balancing things so I know the game will STILL likely be an unbalanced mess. This is undoubtedly good for the competitive scene without the existence of such team building restricting mons. (i.e. the Tapus) Honestly just make sure all the starters are in this game + the Latis and this will be 10/10 for me lol.
 
Technically Ruby/Sapphire broke it first
No, technically Ruby and Sapphire didn't do anything and I adressed this topic before (even talked about it in an old article i made in spanish when ORAS came to EU) , and didn't want to repeat myself.

Ruby and Sapphire broke backwards compatibility and this was a poor decision criticized on its day, but you could have the 386 existent Pokémon of III Gen by transfering from Colosseum, X D, FR or LG.

Could you have the 386 Pokémon on RSE? Answer yes or no. Yes. End of the discussion. Sometimes things are simple. Sword and Shield are, for the first time in the history of the franchise, not allowing you to transfer all the Pokémon from previous generations. Or, in the case of RZE, not even transfer the Pokémon from same-generation cartridges. 100?200? 300? 400? It doesn't matter, it's unprecedented. Again. End of the story. There're no more examples on this matter, Sword and Shield are alone. And no, you can not argue that "maybe in the future when another 8 Gen edition...". No. No. Ruby and Sapphire weren't sold under the premisse of "you'll be only able o catch Pokémon from the Hoenn Dex". Because, u know what, they had National Dex. There wasn't a plan consisting in, as Game Freak is actually saying, "change our philosophy". And yes, it was a pain, but at last you were able to get all the Pokémon from other versions because they weren't "regional dex locked" to Hoenn.

I know you are not questioning this, but I, like you -probably- have been a fan of the franchise since RGBY. I'll not commit an error of this caliber when arguing, so keep that in mind because i know everything u know too, unless you are about to check bulbapedia every 5 minutes for little details. I know it's easy to ignore everything and believe that the one person you are talking with is forgetting crucial facts like the loss of backwardss compatibility from Gen III, but trust me, almost everyone here knows that.
 
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Well, if I have to write an opinion on this compability cutout, I honestly am divided myself. Some good points are made in favour of it, yet the backlash (and not undeserved one) pretty much proves how risky this move is, with several more points raised against it. And there's even the danger of letting this be their continuous MO in the future, which harms my prospect of them staying long in shape. This is a sign of decay.
Raging mindlessly won't be good, yet letting this slide is a sign of decay that would let us take their next questionable moves for granted in the future.

Honestly I'm against it too, but the points raised are at least enough for me to calm down instead of raging, although not enough to keep me from major disappointment and keep my excitement living for this game to at least delay my buy for something else more promising, if not outright skipping it. Even if I dislike some reactions to this issue on the lower spectrum, I honestly can't do anything about it to stop and make them act more decently as this is just... surprisingly unthinkable move.

Anyway, are the Raids also Level-locked/preset or something? The pre-raid interface I see doesn't have Lv of raid 'mon. It'd be hilarious if I can just solo things with Lv100 Zacian or something, although then again GO had it that way too (... if you have a lot of Stardust to burn as currency-like EXP replacement) and it is not less harder, just ensuring you're not slaughtered shortly.
 
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No, technically Ruby and Sapphire didn't do anything and I adressed this topic before (even talked about it in an old article i made in spanish when ORAS came to EU) , and didn't want to repeat myself.

Ruby and Sapphire broke backwards compatibility and this was a poor decision criticized on its day, but you could have the 386 existent Pokémon of III Gen by transfering from Colosseum, X D, FR or LG.
But you couldn't when it was released, and you had to wait until more games were released to be able to do so, which was the point that was being addressed.
 
But you couldn't when it was released, and you had to wait until more games were released to be able to do so, which was the point that was being addressed.
Well, they're still coded, and eventually they are making their way there too. Similarly, Pokemon Home will have long delay like PokeBank back then, but eventually it will... with the exception that it is flatly incompatible with no data in SwSh, thus no dice for the unlucky mon. With this said, I want to keep this delusional optimism that they'd patch it or something and not let it pass simply this way. Delusional, but I can dream until truth crushes it personally.
 
But you couldn't when it was released, and you had to wait until more games were released to be able to do so, which was the point that was being addressed.

Could you have the 386 Pokémon on RSE? Answer yes or no. Yes. End of the discussion. Sometimes things are simple. Sword and Shield are, for the first time in the history of the franchise, not allowing you to transfer all the Pokémon from previous generations. Or, in the case of RZE, not even transfer the Pokémon from same-generation cartridges. 100?200? 300? 400? It doesn't matter, it's unprecedented. Again. End of the story. There're no more examples on this matter, Sword and Shield are alone. And no, you can not argue that "maybe in the future when another 8 Gen edition...". No. No. Ruby and Sapphire weren't sold under the premisse of "you'll be only able o catch Pokémon from the Hoenn Dex". Because, u know what, they had National Dex. There wasn't a plan consisting in, as Game Freak is actually saying, "change our philosophy". And yes, it was a pain, but at last you were able to get all the Pokémon from other versions because they weren't "regional dex locked" to Hoenn.
With the objective information we've right now, only Pokémon you'll be able to get on Sword and Shield are the ones from its regional dex. They have made an statement (which they didn't back in RSE days). Could they change their minds? Yes. I think I said this earlier, but be possitive, keep thinking that maybe in the future you'll be able to do what they are already telling you won't be able to. And utilize this as an argument (one that, at this moment, is not only hypotetical but a lie) to defend your posture.
 

earl

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I seriously don't get why people are happy and support that Nintendo/Gamefreak are reducing the # of Pokemon transferable in Gen 8

The fact of the matter is, you're paying more money to get less content. This has been an infuriating trend with Pokemon as of late, they remove content and pass it off as a "feature" or a "necessity". The reality is, they know how stupidly gullible this community is, that they can get away with anything since whales will just buy it anyway.

It doesn't matter if you feel that there's a glut in the # of Pokemon, or items, or whatever. Or if you think Pokemon is "just a kids game" so they don't have to cater to their veteran playerbase. Nor does it matter if they plan on adding the Pokemon back in future installments/DLC. You're giving a multi billion dollar company a pass to sell you less and pad their bottom line. It's just downright anti-consumer.

Nintendo has, for a long time, been in the realm of terrible publishing/dev companies such as EA and Activison. However, unlike other gaming companies, there's a lot of nostalgia wrapped up in their products and they always mange to sell products with a smile (and far less condescending rhetoric). So they get away with things get hate in regards to other companies. Furthermore, they'll keep doing it beacuse consumers still vote with their wallets to support their terrible behavior.

They don't deserve your pity or compassion, nor do they deserve your money. I could not, for the life of me, buy USUM beacuse of how bad they have acted (despite severely wanting access to Move Tutors). I didn't bother to purchase a Switch, again beacuse there are better games and companies out there that deserve my money more. I'm probably passing Gen 8 to, since they seem adamant on being anti-consumer.

I haven't been on Smogon in ages or played any Pokemon (and I only came online to look at the discourse around Gen 8). This has nothing to do with the Smogon community, and everything to do with how poor Pokemon has been as of late. I can't touch this game without just hating myself for playing it.

Don't give Pokemon a pass on this issue. They don't deserve it.
The content that’s only available to people who pay a monthly subscription fee to actually access it in the first place? Doesn’t hurt me. I already regularly wipe my game files and breeding was never my thing so the decision doesn’t trouble me in the slightest. It’s akin to a company saying that they’re cutting a DLC I wasn’t going to buy in the first place. I’m sure a lot of people wanted it and are angry about it, but I’m much more excited about the open world concept.

I’m sure it sucks for a lot of people. But I’m buying the game regardless because I’m much more excited for the open world and other new stuff than I am disappointed about cut Pokémon.

Just thought I’d provide a counterpoint cuz it seems the apathetic/interested people are being made out to be mindless Gamefreak fanboys or whatever
 
I’m much more excited for the open world and other new stuff than I am disappointed about cut Pokémon.
Could you share what has you excited apart from the Open World? Because I don't know anything about this Open World in detail, just a massive landscape with nothing, and haven't seen anything mechanic-related. Just Dynamaxing, which by itself is a lackluster Mega-Evolution.

But looking at your post I feel like we are getting the Battle Frontier, On-Line Breeding Systems in which you say "No" and that Egg is recovered at the Daycare of another player who's breeding the same mon, World Tournament with almost all the trainers from past regions + downloable content like in BW2, a new Join Avenue, a substantial mini-game like Contests or the Underground from DPPl, fresh battle formats (like doubles, triple or rotation, even more focus in inverse battles), customizable Pokémon League, difficulty selector from the beginning, customizable Safari Zone like in HG/SS, you know, things that made Pokémon and were great.

I sincerely would like to understand what you are so interested in at this point, to see if i've missed something relevant in the news. Because it seems whatever they've added (and I don't know about) is enough to justify the abscense of 400 Pokémon. It has to be great, that's for sure.
 

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The fact of the matter is, you're paying more money to get less content
This is a hilariously bad take, speaking for myself I don't give a shit about quantity of content, I care about quality. Emerald is still the best Pokemon game despite not having 700 Pokemon worth of content. The size of the Pokedex has no functional impact on the quality of the game or my enjoyment of it.
 
So apparently, they decided to cut the amount of available Pokémon now because it would eventually become overwhelming and decided to prevent it early: https://www.usgamer.net/articles/pokemon-sword-and-shield-interview

"We knew at some point we weren't going to be able to indefinitely keep supporting all of the Pokemon, and we just found that Sword and Shield would probably be a good point to go back and reevaluate what would be the best selection of Pokemon that appeal to the widest audience while keeping into consideration the balance of the battle system."
 
In an interview with USgamer, Junichi Masuda has reiterated that the volume of higher quality animations required due to the Nintendo Switch for such a large amount of Pokémon was a big part in their decision to cut connectivity with Pokémon not in the Galar Pokédex. With that, it also brought the balance of the competitive scene into the fold in order to make the best decisions and keep the competitive nature of the game which results in them going back to reevaluate the best selection. The quote from the interview is as follows

"There are a couple of different parts to the thinking behind it, but really the biggest reason for it is just the sheer number of Pokemon. We already have well over 800 Pokemon species, and there's going to be more added in these games. And now that they're on the Nintendo Switch, we're creating it with much higher fidelity with higher quality animations. But even more than that, it's coming down to the battle system. We're making sure we can keep everything balanced and give all the Pokemon that appear in the games a chance to shine.

We knew at some point we weren't going to be able to indefinitely keep supporting all of the Pokemon, and we just found that Sword and Shield would probably be a good point to go back and reevaluate what would be the best selection of Pokemon that appeal to the widest audience while keeping into consideration the balance of the battle system. It isn't just going to be all-new Pokemon in the Galar region Pokedex; there's still going to be a lot of favorites that fans will be able to bring over that they've adventured with previously. But yeah, it was pretty much just balancing and getting this optimal selection of Pokemon for the adventure we wanted to provide. "

Source: Serebii.net

I guess they're finally balancing the mons. VGC2015 and VGC2018 must have hit 'em hard to reach such decision, even tho they snapped half of the population in the proccess. It seems not reasonable to me to get all ~1000 in a single game as each game could have their own dex + few extras, the only reason backing the "Dexit" tantrum is the old yet rotting slogan: "Gotta Catch 'Em All!".
 

earl

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Could you share what has you excited apart from the Open World? Because I don't know anything about this Open World in detail, just a massive landscape with nothing, and haven't seen anything mechanic-related. Just Dynamaxing, which by itself is a lackluster Mega-Evolution.

But looking at your post I feel like we are getting the Battle Frontier, On-Line Breeding Systems in which you say "No" and that Egg is recovered at the Daycare of another player who's breeding the same mon, World Tournament with almost all the trainers from past regions + downloable content like in BW2, a new Join Avenue, a substantial mini-game like Contests or the Underground from DPPl, fresh battle formats (like doubles, triple or rotation, even more focus in inverse battles), customizable Pokémon League, difficulty selector from the beginning, customizable Safari Zone like in HG/SS, you know, things that made Pokémon and were great.

I sincerely would like to understand what you are so interested in at this point, to see if i've missed something relevant in the news. Because it seems whatever they've added (and I don't know about) is enough to justify the abscense of 400 Pokémon. It has to be great, that's for sure.
I’m also excited for visible overworld Pokémon (not as random), the apparent ability to sequence break (they said you can wander anywhere in the wild area), and new Pokémon.

Also like 90% of the things you mentioned as stuff that “made” Pokémon are postgame things I gave about 20 minutes of time to. Contrary to the (apparent) average player on this site, I rarely pour more than 100 or so hours into a Pokémon game on my first play through, if that. This game seems to be much better for replaying (which is much easier thanks to the user system on the switch), which is my primary concern on whether or not I’ll find the game to be good. In the scope of just replaying the base game, which with even “just” 400 mons is plenty of times, this game appears to be better than most past titles. And I like that.
 
Well, they're still coded
The thing here is that what Masuda said implies the pokemon aren't coded into the games at all much like they aren't coded in LGPE. If they were, why wouldn't you be able to transfer it? And back in 2002 when gen3 came out there were real hardware and software limitations. It's naive to think the situation is the same as with the 3ds games or even remotely comparable to what happened over 15 years ago.
 
Let me get this straight...

You still have to pay for Pokémon Bank.
You now also have to pay for Pokémon Home.
You also obviously have to pay for Nintendo Switch Online.
You also have to pay more for the games than before since console games cost more than handheld titles.

And all of this for less content? For "balance reasons"? Get the fuck out of here.
 
I’m also excited for visible overworld Pokémon (not as random), the apparent ability to sequence break (they said you can wander anywhere in the wild area), and new Pokémon.

Also like 90% of the things you mentioned as stuff that “made” Pokémon are postgame things I gave about 20 minutes of time to. Contrary to the (apparent) average player on this site, I rarely pour more than 100 or so hours into a Pokémon game on my first play through, if that. This game seems to be much better for replaying (which is much easier thanks to the user system on the switch), which is my primary concern on whether or not I’ll find the game to be good. In the scope of just replaying the base game, which with even “just” 400 mons is plenty of times, this game appears to be better than most past titles. And I like that.
So, it's clear that you can't provide a list of great things that we already know of and justify the absence of -to say something- hundreds of Pokémon. I respect you as a player in the sense that maybe you are focused only in the competitive scene, and so I understand you don't care a bit about content because you won't use it, but those things are content, quality content in real terms, that make some editions of Pokémon great and justify the 40 bucks (60 this time) you'll pay.

Your opinion is respectable, of course, but I don't see anyting or anybody providing me objective information about great things that we know have existed before and news just tell us that a bunch of Pokémon will've wiped from the games, so I'm pretty sure Platinum, HGSS or BW2 will have more quality content than Sword and Shield, in a hardware 10 times inferior.

Unless there's only 2 gym leaders, no evil team, and only the few towns/areas they have shown, this is false.
You'll buy the game. It'll have next to no Post-Game like the las 2 Generations. You'll have 400 or 500 mons to play with so ye, I'm pretty sure it'll have less content.

In fact, copy me on this, I'll say that they don't even have Move Tutors.
 
I guess they're finally balancing the mons. VGC2015 and VGC2018 must have hit 'em hard to reach such decision, even tho they snapped half of the population in the proccess. It seems not reasonable to me to get all ~1000 in a single game as each game could have their own dex + few extras, the only reason backing the "Dexit" tantrum is the old yet rotting slogan: "Gotta Catch 'Em All!".
Yeyeyeyey, millions of ppl who have invested hours in breeding and catching their mons, in a franchise that every year presumes of "connecting with people and your Pokémon as friends", forcing you to throw away the majority of mons u've dedicated your life as a player.

Ts, ts, but ey, its just the old yet rotting slogan of "Gotta Catch 'Em All!", not the obvious reasons behind this decission. They've done all alright. Ok? Everything. It has nothing to do with the little effort they've put onto their games the last years leading us to the point we are now. It has nothing to do wit selling u the same game twice to add 5 mons or move tutors they deliberately keep from the first 2 editions in every generation, it has nothing to do with all of this ending with the wiping of half the dex in what should've been the most ambitious Pokémon Games ever made, due the conditions and the hardware it runs on, and it has nothing to do with justify the payment of both the online service and the Pokémon Bank.

They've done it alright. We are the problem x'DDDD
 

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