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

[R_N]

Going back on Dexit seems way different than going back on what theyve said about returning pokemon, while we are on the subject.
First off it could have been true at the time. No firm plans beyond a general idea at the time of carrying it forward, with them ultimately deciding on DLC as the best solution at a later point.
Scenario 2 is the usual thing you'll see: no further plans even if dlc is actually in the cards because Marketing. Get the game out the door then announce dlc later, when you have something to show and actual plans drawn up.

Meanwhile going back on returning Pokemon numbering would be equivalent to going actually you can't dress as Rose, you still get other clothes tho.. Acrually there wont be apricorns, sorry.. Actually there is no co-op mode where you can capture legendary pokemon, uts just co-op.

One is a possible change in future nebulous plans, one is going back on outlined features advertised for a product you can buy right now.

Personally ill save my pessimism for things like campaign length, move tutors, how gmax tutoring works, how terrible the coop mode etc etc. Plenty of ways for gamefreak gamefreak without pulling back on features already advertised. Know what I'm saying?

 

[Count Bleck]

Hasn't GF already done false advertising? They said that dexit was partially for new models of Pokemon, but Dataminers have proven that the models are reused.

That quote is also very suspect of miatranslation. While the definition is right, whether it was a plural models or a singular model changes the entire message, and for months i suspect they were talking about the business model that changed, not the models for the pokemon, but there's no waybto tell because apparently the word doesnt have a plural.

 

[R_N]

That quote is also very suspect of miatranslation. While the definition is right, whether it was a plural models or a singular model changes the entire message, and for months i suspect they were talking about the business model that changed, not the models for the pokemon, but there's no waybto tell because apparently the word doesnt have a plural.

While translation issues abound the idea that for months that every single person doing translation work conflated everything from word, sentence structure AND context of surrounding quotes as "[pokemon models]" instead business models is a real stretch to me.

e: Especially when Serebii is involved in a pre-release cycle and he'd leap to correct that in an instant with his own translators

 

[Count Bleck]

While translation issues abound the idea that for months that every single person doing translation work conflated everything from word, sentence structure AND context of surrounding quotes as "[pokemon models]" instead business models is a real stretch to me.

e: Especially when Serebii is involved in a pre-release cycle and he'd leap to correct that in an instant with his own translators

It's also equally strange that they would make such a claim that the pokemon models would have to be redone and not only lie about it but also bring it up in the midst of an unrelated conversation. Whole thing is a head scratcher if you ask me.

 

[R_N]

It's also equally strange that they would make such a claim that the pokemon models would have to be redone and not only lie about it but also bring it up in the midst of an unrelated conversation. Whole thing is a head scratcher if you ask me.

From the initial e3 bomb..
"...Transition to Nintendo Switch hardware, it being much more powerful, allowing us to be much more expressive with each of the individual Pokemon". They then follow ujp with, among other things, the "quality of the Pokemon".
So already we have insight into the model portion of this.

https://www.siliconera.com/game-fre...ear-even-in-games-after-pokemon-sword-shield/
So next is the Famitsu interview. Siliconera, fairly respected in their own right, has a summary of it, but they mention several times about the models of the Pokemon themselves. Improving the models, upkeeping the models, lively animations, the need to redo the models. Models are mentioned directly in relation to the Switch and the Pokemon themselves, not just the business model.

Here is the Famtisu interview if you'd like to commission someone to translate it in full because outside of siliconera I could only find countless nested links leading back to it or reddit posts from people I can't say anything about. https://www.famitsu.com/news/201906/13177936.html
If it turns out it was all business model all the time here sure okay, mea culpa.


I will note that from what I remember of the first big datamined comparisons, some models do have changes, so it's not like their completely blowing smoke up our asses here. Ribombee is one of the more obvious ones, but while a number of models are 1;1 there's an interesting assortment of models that look visually similar but have portions of their model that just has a bunch of different tris to them, primarily in their faces. I remember seeing Noibat side by Side, for example and even though nothing seems that different if you dig into their tris alomst everything i nteh face was slightly refined behind the scenes; meanwhile something like Clefairy had all of...2 tri differences, in its wings. Arcanine, iirc, had assorted parts of its model.
We also know from people trying to import Let's Go models that there are additional other things involved. Pokemon need to have their textures redone to match the game and entrance animations dont play normally which leads to crashes if they can't reroute it else where.

Honestly I think ultimately their definition of "lively" and "updated" is different from ours. What a lot of people think: brand new animations, exceptional new facial animations, models that shine, probably new idles. What it probably was: upkeeping these ancient models that might break because of the new system, tweaking animations accordingly, adding extra mouth and head movements, refining entrance animations, redoing the textures, etc.
You kind of see this with Smash Bros, too. Sakurai has used similar language in the past even though its clear a lto of models & animations are often still used from a game or two prior, but touched up.





But to put on my tin foil hat, for which I have no real solid proof over....I think there was an issue importing the models which caused all this mess. What happened? Why? Who can say for sure. Basically I think that something was causing a lot, but not all, their models to break slightly once set up. And once models or worse, animations, started breaking, it was easier to fix them to make them in line with the existing models and then do all their other misc changes like textures and having every dynamax pokemon tilt their head down to look at the smaller pokemon on the field. Same with animations: easier to try and match existing animations and tweak from there than create entirely new animations that would take even more time to map out and do.
That would explain why some models had random portions of their model updated bu others didnt & it'd explain anomalies like Wingull's attacking animation which is similar to but actually slightly different from its gen 7 animation. We could also extend this to movexit to a nextent, I suppose, but ehhh that's a whole other kettle of fish.
Like I said, though, pure conjecture making conclusions based on very little.

 

[Rapti]

It's also equally strange that they would make such a claim that the pokemon models would have to be redone and not only lie about it but also bring it up in the midst of an unrelated conversation. Whole thing is a head scratcher if you ask me.

To be fair, they seem to have meant the Pokemon Amie models since Pokemon Camp seems to be based on it

now why would they prioritize a tertiary if that activity over bringing in more pokemon or even update the battle animations remains unexplained

 

[Mega-Pokebattlerz]

With the announcement of the Shiny Celebi event, this leak is given some credibility. Still take it with a grain of salt.

Yeah no, didn't the Direct show off regular Nidoqueen, Lugia and Ho-oh? If they were making Galarian forms for those Pokemon, that would have been the prime time to show them off (like they did with Slowpoke, Slowbro and the Legendary birds). Plus some obvious wishlisting like Gigantamax Flygon and the Bug/Dragon Galarian Yanmega. I'm not convinced.

But hey, at least now we have a new addition to the Pokemon Rumor Dumpster!

 

[R_N]

To be fair, they seem to have meant the Pokemon Amie models since Pokemon Camp seems to be based on it

now why would they prioritize a tertiary if that activity over bringing in more pokemon or even update the battle animations remains unexplained

pokemon amie always felt more of a priority in places.
Like, why does almost every single pokemon have a unique sleeping animation (& waking up animation) exclusive to this mode.
Or all the unique happy dancing animations
angry "hey dont do that" animations
plus all the pivoting to program for following your cursor, doign high fives or otherwise pawing at your pokepuffs/beans

I guess they just realyl really want to emphasize the ability to interact with your Pokemon.

 

[Worldie]

now why would they prioritize a tertiary if that activity over bringing in more pokemon or even update the battle animations remains unexplained

Because it's an activity that the main playerbase loves: kids.

You really underestimate how much young kids love Arnie/Camp.

You need to remember that the people you read here on the internets are maybe a 1% of the playerbase. The other 99% is youngs or extremely casual players who literally only care for the cuteness, don't want or require complex storylines or elaborated details, and just want to see Snom bringing the ball to them.

 

[Yung Dramps]

To be fair, they seem to have meant the Pokemon Amie models since Pokemon Camp seems to be based on it

now why would they prioritize a tertiary if that activity over bringing in more pokemon or even update the battle animations remains unexplained

Because it's an activity that the main playerbase loves: kids.

You really underestimate how much young kids love Arnie/Camp.

You need to remember that the people you read here on the internets are maybe a 1% of the playerbase. The other 99% is youngs or extremely casual players who literally only care for the cuteness, don't want or require complex storylines or elaborated details, and just want to see Snom bringing the ball to them.

Pfft, forget young children. Have you even SEEN the amount of memes, gifs and cute images produced and circulated since the conception of Pokemon Amie and its extensions/spin-offs in Refresh and Camp? Camp in particular has given rise to people telling little "stories" about their Pokemon and how they interact with one another. Even LGPE kept it in some form by letting you interact with your partner mons. These features have been a smash hit that uttertly dwarve even following Pokemon, making it a perfectly valid reason to invest the amount of effort they do into keeping and expanding on them.

 

[Rapti]

Because it's an activity that the main playerbase loves: kids.

You really underestimate how much young kids love Arnie/Camp.

You need to remember that the people you read here on the internets are maybe a 1% of the playerbase. The other 99% is youngs or extremely casual players who literally only care for the cuteness, don't want or require complex storylines or elaborated details, and just want to see Snom bringing the ball to them.

Citation needed?

Look, I worked as a teacher before and while I seen kids with wearing pokemon backpacks with the occasional Pikachu plush, the only students I ever seen even discussing anything related to the games themselves where teens

and whenever I been to Pokemon Amie youtube channels my recommendations haven't been flooded with videos targeting children unlike when I go to Minecraft related channels or even certain letsplayers, I think even seeing Shofu put some toy unboxing videos in my recommendations once
Pokemon Amie? never

Like I'm not saying you're wrong but I have no evidence that you're right

 

[Pikachu315111]

Jokes aside if we start doubting everything gamefreaks says there is 0 reason to ever pay attention to them or anything in a news cycle because everything could be lies.

I'll be honest I'm already sort on that level, at least for anything GF says off the cuff. Official news on the site I'll trust cause that sort of has to go through a process and any false information on there could be considered false advertising. However if they ever do "live" interviews such as at a game conference or with a magazine I'm now taking things they say with a grain of salt as spoken words aren't definite as GF likes to flip-flop (especially anything Masuda says).

That said, I'm taking that "leak" with a block of salt. Yanma becoming Bug/Dragon but not Flygon? While I might believe a Galarian Lugia it doesn't make sense for Galarian Ho-Oh as its the leader of the Legendary Beasts. What's the point of making a Gmax Lucario look like Mega Lucario, might as well reuse Mega Lucario which if they did that would have players wanting them to reuse all the Mega designs as Gmax which we see they don't want to do. Flygon feels like a random addition, unless it has a connection with a character coming in the Expansions feels like wishlisting after it didn't get a Mega Evolution. I also find it highly questionable Gmax Regigigas getting FIVE Gmax Moves.

pokemon amie always felt more of a priority in places.

You really underestimate how much young kids love Arnie/Camp.

Pfft, forget young children. Have you even SEEN the amount of memes, gifs and cute images produced and circulated since the conception of Pokemon Amie and its extensions/spin-offs in Refresh and Camp?

And, though I only used it after every major match (basically between Gym Battles), I actually agree with GF putting high priority on Camp. Camp and its predecessors was a MUCH needed feature the Pokemon games needed for a franchise that wants you to form a personal connection with their magical creatures. And from what I can tell, at least with the new Pokemon, they've really upped the personality the Pokemon display. I wouldn't be surprised if in the Expansions we see further add-ons to Camp like more toys (maybe even new kinds?), curry recipes, and NPC camps.

 

[DreamPrince]

One thing I liked about Amie was the mini games. I really liked Head it and manages to get the maximum value of points. It was also really fun way to get Pokepuffs. Why did they remove it in Refresh and Camp?

 

[R_N]

One thing I liked about Amie was the mini games. I really liked Head it and manages to get the maximum value of points. It was also really fun way to get Pokepuffs. Why did they remove it in Refresh and Camp?

I'm guessing they did it because they wanted the focus to be on different things. Amie was very abstracted into a play room. The botto mscreen was the pokemon hanging out at a tea table, the area itself was all rainbows and blue skies, so you had silly games to go with it.
Refresh, meanwhile, wanted to be you briefly hanging out with your pokemon and "refresh"ing it. So the games got the boot.

Camp decided to aim for more """"realism"""" by having you just sitting down observing all your pokemon interacting and if you wanted to play it'd be with the little cat toy & ball. The focus is definitely more on observation above all considering the weird camera used and the focusing mechanic.

 

[Worldie]

Also, consider that Pokemon Camp actually has... a lot of animations. Some are slightly adjusted versions of combat animations but... Pokemon surprisingly interact with each other. You've probably seen all the memes on the Internets about those.

Like, we can dislike the fact they put so much emphasis on a feature that most of us don't use, I understand that, but there's no denying they put a lot of effort in it.
My personal belief is that while the models probably just required to be "ported" and made forward-compatible with the Switch tech with some updates here and there (difficult to know without inside info), I believe the big bulk of work went into making Camp animations.
(Which would also explain why they preferred to not put the missing pokemon in the data at all: if genned / imported in, they would have broken the game due to missing animations)

Also, as far as I could read from the various hackers/modders that tried to "undexit", for whatever reason Dynamaxing has its own dedicated animation as well. Models straight up imported from Let's Go were perfectly functional in game & battle, but iirc would crash the game when Dynamaxing or getting out of Dynamax.

 

[R_N]

Also, consider that Pokemon Camp actually has... a lot of animations. Some are slightly adjusted versions of combat animations but... Pokemon surprisingly interact with each other. You've probably seen all the memes on the Internets about those.

Like, we can dislike the fact they put so much emphasis on a feature that most of us don't use, I understand that, but there's no denying they put a lot of effort in it.
My personal belief is that while the models probably just required to be "ported" and made forward-compatible with the Switch tech with some updates here and there (difficult to know without inside info), I believe the big bulk of work went into making Camp animations.
(Which would also explain why they preferred to not put the missing pokemon in the data at all: if genned / imported in, they would have broken the game due to missing animations)

Also, as far as I could read from the various hackers/modders that tried to "undexit", for whatever reason Dynamaxing has its own dedicated animation as well. Models straight up imported from Let's Go were perfectly functional in game & battle, but iirc would crash the game when Dynamaxing or getting out of Dynamax.

Some guesses as to what caused issues:
-the size change animation wasn't just a static resizing and had to be done individually
-as i mentioned in passing, if a dynammax pokemon is facing undynamaxed pokemon, it will actually look down at the playing field. Again, probably not something they could necessarily automate (or at least not super easily without it being awkward) due to the different sizes
-When the dynamax finishes growing it basically replays its entrance animation, which was already causing issues when importing to begin with.

does sciresm usually answer questions? iirc he was working with trying to get these going, but I assume it got shelved once the DLC was announced, i wonder if he has more details or if they ddin't get far enough to look into it.

 

[Worldie]

-the size change animation wasn't just a static resizing and had to be done individually

Well, some pokemon have a pretty distinct "Dynamax start" animations (the starters I can remind having unique ones, es Cinderace doing a slide on ground).
It's possible it's indeed a completely separate animation, which for some pokemon "overlaps" with an existing one, with others having completely unique ones.

 

[R_N]

Well, some pokemon have a pretty distinct "Dynamax start" animations (the starters I can remind having unique ones, es Cinderace doing a slide on ground).
It's possible it's indeed a completely separate animation, which for some pokemon "overlaps" with an existing one, with others having completely unique ones.

I am pretty sure I've seen Cinderace's "slide" animation in its normal animation sets. Special attack animation, I think? Status?
Rillaboom is literally just its standard intro animation

I think what actually happens is it plays the intro animation then transitions into whatever acts best as a "roar" animation. Some of thsoe might be unique by necessity, but I wouldn't be surprised if they belong to certain animations you wont usually see on a Pokemon. And others just are the normal attacking animation; primarina uses its special attacking animation (or maybe sparkling aria, specifically? been a while since i've used a primarina)

 

[Kurona]

If anything, I feel like Camp is a great example of how well-polished and how nice the games could look if GF were just given more time to work on them instead of having to rush a new one each year.

Every time Dexit/SwSh complaints and the like come up, there's always some people throwing the accusation that GF are lazy; and I always hate that one. There's so many parts of the game; so many little details that show a lot of love and care and attention by the animators and programmers and all the rest of it. It shows to me that were they given the proper motivation and time, we'd see this love and care and attention extended to so much more of the game.

So stuff like Camp really shows me that it's not laziness making these games miss their potential: it's greed on the part of TPCi executives who want to push out more and more games every year. Were we to get back to a semi-sensible cycle, even the one we had 10 or so years ago; I think we'd really see these games being all they can be.

 

[R_N]

If camp is the standard to compare against then our bar is way too low for a 4 year dev cycle with 1000 people of the most profitable game ip in the world.
Camp is awkward to use , pulls back on interactivity from amie/refresh and curry making suuuuuuucccckkkkssssss. The game's overall issues with animation fidelity also gently rears back throughout, mostly with the direct interactions; not everything gets to be gengar trying to fly and crashing back down, if you catch my drift.
It's right at home with all of SWSH's other parts.


Otherwise I agree that these games needed another year in the oven especially now that we are in HD. Ideally they start allowing high quality spin offs to extend the generations again. Gen 7 in particular was mostly a sea of mobile games of....varying.....quality and short shelf life.

 

[Coronis]

If camp is the standard to compare against then our bar is way too low for a 4 year dev cycle with 1000 people of the most profitable game ip in the world.
Camp is awkward to use , pulls back on interactivity from amie/refresh and curry making suuuuuuucccckkkkssssss. The game's overall issues with animation fidelity also gently rears back throughout, mostly with the direct interactions; not everything gets to be gengar trying to fly and crashing back down, if you catch my drift.
It's right at home with all of SWSH's other parts.


Otherwise I agree that these games needed another year in the oven especially now that we are in HD. Ideally they start allowing high quality spin offs to extend the generations again. Gen 7 in particular was mostly a sea of mobile games of....varying.....quality and short shelf life.

Honestly, the amount of quality spinoffs are what make Gen 4 one of my favourite generations.

 

[Rarycaris]

With the announcement of the Shiny Celebi event, this leak is given some credibility. Still take it with a grain of salt.

We have already seen standard Lugia and Ho-oh among the legendaries released in the Crown Tundra, which disproves this leak unless both the normal *and* Galarian ones are present. As much as I would really like it, I doubt we will get any Galarian legendaries beyond the Kanto birds -- and possibly Regigigas, based on its conspicuous exclusion from the list.

 

[Solemn6]

We have already seen standard Lugia and Ho-oh among the legendaries released in the Crown Tundra

I think we’ve seen non-Galarian nidorino in the trailer and promotional dlc stuff too. Between that, Lugia/ho-oh, and only 80ish mons vs. the 100 per dlc they promised, this seems somewhat unlikely. GF seems lazy enough to skimp out on the Pokemon counts, but there’s no way they’d ever give love to gen 2 mons at this point considering they have had so many opportunities to. (I want my bug/dragon yanma tho)

 

[earl]

but there’s no way they’d ever give love to gen 2 mons at this point

We just gonna ignore Corsola huh

 

[Yung Dramps]

We just gonna ignore Corsola huh

Don't forget Slowking! Technically an evo of a Gen 1 mon, but considering they didn't give Slowking a Mega back in ORAS I reckon it's a fairer outcome for it.