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

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Why are we assuming that Lando and Heatran and the crew are getting cut? How do we have any idea at all what Pokemon are and are not going to be present in the games outside of the ones we've already seen in the trailers? I don't think the idea that non-Galarian legendaries are going to be cut is at all a safe assumption, Pokemon like Heatran and Landorus have been randomly shoehorned into regions where they seemingly don't belong in the past.
 
I said that I wouldn't post here again, but given the recent news, I feel that I have to. I don't know if it is allowed to talk more about "Dexit", but I feel that I really need to say something about this. Major apologies if I'm breaking the rules by doing this. I could write a very long post about my thoughts on this subject, but I decided not to. Just some short thoughts instead. I have had some time to think about this after first learning about it two days ago, so I guess it is better this way.

To put it all very simply: I am disappointed. I am not happy about this at all. One of the things I wanted from S/S was the option to see ALL 809+ Pokémon (as well as things like alternate forms and Megas) in full HD on my TV. But the games aren't going to let me do this. Though I guess we should have seen this coming. If I'm allowed to be really cynical and critical for a moment, I think the games have slowly been decreasing in quality starting with Gen 6. I was kind of hoping that S/S would turn that around, but I was wrong. I was very hyped for the games after seeing the recent trailers (as stated in my previous post), but this reveal made me lose about 80% of my hype. Even worse, I feel that it made me lose a fair bit of my interest in Pokémon on the whole. I thought that including all Pokémon was at the very least going to be the bare minimum of what S/S were going to do, but no. I'm also disappointed to see that there will be no Megas or Z-moves in those games since I really like those two features.

I won't say more than this. It would just be stating the obvious and repeating what others have already said. This might not be the end of the world, but if nothing else was before, then this is definitely the beginning of the end when it comes to my interest in Pokémon. It feels sad because I will soon have been a Pokémon fan for 20 years. But I guess everything must come to an end. Even with all of this, I will probably still buy Sword on the release date and play through it. But if this really is the future of the series (which it seems like), I can't see myself being a Pokémon fan for much longer. I also said that I wouldn't look at any more pre-release information for the games, but now I kind of want to see if there's any official response towards this. I don't think they have ever recieved this much negative feedback before, and I'm not sure if they can just ignore it.
 
Why are we assuming that Lando and Heatran and the crew are getting cut? How do we have any idea at all what Pokemon are and are not going to be present in the games outside of the ones we've already seen in the trailers? I don't think the idea that non-Galarian legendaries are going to be cut is at all a safe assumption, Pokemon like Heatran and Landorus have been randomly shoehorned into regions where they seemingly don't belong in the past.
They were only "shoehorned" into the final games of a generation, just like pretty much every other previous-gen legendary. And the reason they are likely to be among the missing Pokémon is... exactly that - that they are old legendaries.
 
I love how little we remember sometimes about past metagames, not only Pokémon, competitive games in general. You really think that leaving out Lando-T or Heatran 100% contributes to anything? Oh my...

No broskis. That's not how it works. Leaving out Greninja? Sure. There isn't a Pokémon that does what Greninja does? Sure, sure. And?

Greninja is scary in this metagame. U know what was scary too? Tauros. Snorlax. Garchomp and Salamence, to the point they were banned. SDLuke as LG Sweeper. Excadrill in V Gen. Sun Teams in V Gen. Rain teams in V Gen.

An option (aka Pokémon) is scary within a given context. You leave Heatran and Lando out. Ok. Now the pool of 400 Pokémon they select results in a meta where Rain is Overpowered and the combination of selected mons just makes it impossible to safely counter it. Done. There you have a new meta. You won't be crying about Heatran or Landorus, you'll be crying about, idk, Gyarados, to say something, because in this context of play, with this rules, this Pokémon and ultimately this changes they've made, Gyarados is broken.

How can you predict this? You can't. We can have a brief idea, that's all. Of course, given we know a certain meta, then we can asure how some things will affect it. If you are already playing ORAS and you know what the context of that meta is, you know that Mega-Mence is broken just by looking at it. But that isn't the case, we are not playing the new meta and we don't know anything about its changes.
 
I love how little we remember sometimes about past metagames, not only Pokémon, competitive games in general. You really think that leaving out Lando-T or Heatran 100% contributes to anything? Oh my...

No broskis. That's not how it works. Leaving out Greninja? Sure. There isn't a Pokémon that does what Greninja does? Sure, sure. And?

Greninja is scary in this metagame. U know what was scary too? Tauros. Snorlax. Garchomp and Salamence, to the point they were banned. SDLuke as LG Sweeper. Excadrill in V Gen. Sun Teams in V Gen. Rain teams in V Gen.

An option (aka Pokémon) is scary within a given context. You leave Heatran and Lando out. Ok. Now the pool of 400 Pokémon they select results in a meta where Rain is Overpowered and the combination of selected mons just makes it impossible to safely counter it. Done. There you have a new meta. You won't be crying about Heatran or Landorus, you'll be crying about, idk, Gyarados, to say something, because in this context of play, with this rules, this Pokémon and ultimately this changes they've made, Gyarados is broken.

How can you predict this? You can't. We can have a brief idea, that's all. Of course, given we know a certain meta, then we can assure how some things will affect it. If you are already playing ORAS and you know what the context of that meta is, you know that Mega-Mence is broken just by looking at it. But that isn't the case, we are not playing the new meta and we don't know anything about its changes.
Tauros, Snorlax, and Mence weren't banned in their respective gens because they served as balancers for the meta, Gen 7 had one with Aegislash + Lando but they banned the former and now you need even dumber stuff like Magearna to check the busted mons. There's literally no reason to not be excited as Pokemon would have to get axed at SOME POINT by SOME GENERATION anyways.

I'm willing to trust GameFreak this time around because honestly Dynamaxing is a great mechanic that lacks most of the mistakes Mega Evolutions and Z Moves had. For starters, it is a universal mechanic that can effect any Pokemon, giving them a set and predictable result as damage stays the same no matter what move you use. Second, this allows for much more versatile movesets, as this mechanic rewards wider movepools more than raw damage. This makes it strategic, as the HP buff and set moves can often allow you to have much more versatile movesets and handle much more Pokemon than a typical team of six can.

I'll leave an example down below, but man am I excited. This mechanic seems to reward Pokemon with lots of utility and allows for much more flexibility, using Dynamaxing to cover for weaker match-ups as opposed to past mechanics which mostly just created much more power creep. I'm really invested in what GameFreak is doing and if they gut certain Pokemon (i.e. Tapu's like Lele) we may see an incredibly balanced and entertaining meta. The Dex seems to be absolutely gigantic and I wouldn't be surprised if most of the fan favorites and non metagame defining legendaries made it in.
Your team: Scizor / Chesnaught / Gliscor / Azumarill / Infernape / Latios
Their team: Rotom-W / Scizor / Latios / Excadrill / Tyranitar / Breloom
Important info:

Your Gliscor (Gliscor) (M) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 244 HP / 44 Def / 164 SpD / 56 Spe
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Roost
- Earthquake
- Knock Off

Your opponent's Rotom has Volt Switch and Will-o-Wisp. Scizor carrying Pursuit isn't uncommon.

Through one means or another, your Gliscor has not been poisoned and Azumarill is out against a Rotom-W. Having no easy switch-in to Rotom-W, you send out Latios to get WoW'd but instead Rotom-W Volt Switches and sends out Scizor. Predicting Pursuit, You get a Draco Meteor/Surf off to chip Scizor, only for it to U-Turn back to a full HP Rotom-W. This match-up would typically be insanely advantageous for your opponent, as he either gets a free burn or a free kill. However, thanks to Dynamax, you send out a giant Gliscor with access to Max Guard and a strong Dark move. Gliscor uses Max Guard to get Poison Heal off as the Rotom-W stays in and all of a sudden it is you with the giant advantage, as his team has no solid switch-in to Gliscor's beefed up coverage. Even if Breloom was more defensive, Chesnaught can safely come in with no issues. Gliscor now can stall Rotom-W with Roost and can even set up rocks so that Infernape, Scizor, or Azumarill can get desperate chip to win the game. Even if Rotom-W switched out into Latios as you went for Max Guard, you were still able to obtain your safe Rotom-W check and can switch out to Azumarill/Scizor to still put the pressure back in your favor.
 
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Second, you have to send the Pokemon out as Dynamaxed; meaning - you cannot use this mechanic to "surprise lure" but to create a set strategy, often at team preview, for you to win.
This is false. We have plenty of footage showing that Dmax has the same "toggle before using a move" interface megas and Z-moves have. If anything, easy speed control with Max Strike (off of return/hyper beam/giga impact) and no apparent item restrictions make it an easier thing to lure with than at least megas.
 
With what we currently have confirmed to be returning to SwSh, along with some of the Dynamax moves being able to call in weather and terrain, I think we're going to see a new Weather Wars gen. Look at what we currently have confirmed for weather setters:

Sand:
-Tyranitar
-Hippowdon
-Gigalith

Rain:
-Pelipper (with Ludicolo and Seismitoad as viable Swift Swim users)

Sun:
-Ninetales (Leafeon's the only Chlorophyll user confirmed atm, but with Charizard in the game, I see Venusaur coming along with it)

Hail:
-Abomasnow
-Vanilluxe

There also won't be a shortage of terrains despite the likeliness of no Tapus given that quite a few Dynamax attacks (Grass, Electric, and Fairy confirmed, with Psychic very well-likely being able to summon Psychic terrain given the current pattern) can summon terrain as a secondary effect, and with that, I see Terrain Seed abusers like Hawlucha, another Pokemon confirmed to be in SwSh, running through so many teams.
 
There also won't be a shortage of terrains despite the likeliness of no Tapus given that quite a few Dynamax attacks (Grass, Electric, and Fairy confirmed, with Psychic very well-likely being able to summon Psychic terrain given the current pattern) can summon terrain as a secondary effect, and with that, I see Terrain Seed abusers like Hawlucha, another Pokemon confirmed to be in SwSh, running through so many teams.
And as a matter of fact, Hawlucha can learn Zen Headbutt from tutors, so if Dynamaxing is indeed not tied from an item, it could even set up the Seed/Terrain combo on its own if one so much desired.
 
Glad to see that I’m not the only old person coming back here to read/post about this change.

Overall, I’m disappointed by this decision in a real way, even though it’s probably irrational. It just seems like a compromise on the core of the series, and it essentially changes how we look at Sword/Shield and future games: instead of looking forward to what these games add, we will wonder what they’re taking away. Imagine the rage when the inevitable Gen 8 generic fish or butterfly Pokémon gets revealed - everyone would be pissed at it taking the slot away from their favorite.

It doesn’t help that from a communication point of view, this has been an absolute shitshow. They announce this massive change and then only explain it in terms of the benefit to themselves, not their customers. ‘It’s really hard, the Switch is more powerful, we can’t do it”. When I hear something like that, my immediate response is “figure it out goddamnit”. The games were never technically impressive and I was okay with that, so to think they prioritized some crappy animation over a fundamental aspect of the series is crazy to me. It just seems like they know they can get away with anything as these games will still sell over 10 million copies easily.

From a competitive point of view, removing some of the Pokémon could improve balance, but obviously they could have just excluded them from PvP if that was the real reason. Secondly, some really powerful Pokémon are also some of the biggest favorites. We already saw Tyranitar, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a ton of legendaries work themselves in some way, people really like them. At the end of the day, any metagame will have its own broken Pokémon. Has there been a generation where one Pokémon wasn’t on at least 20% OU teams? That said, in that case I’d still prefer it to be Tyranitar or Salamence rather than some legendary, so at least there’s that. The best thing they could do is to redistribute base stats and abilities for some older Pokémon to make them more viable.
 
From what I know about Dynamax, it seems kind of underwhelming as a mechanic too.
I mean, once you understood what Mega-evolutions were you couldn't wait to see the new forms of old Pokemon.
Now they're applying a scale matrix to the models, calling it "Dynamix" and they want us to get excited?
Teaming up to battle giant Pokemon "bosses" is fine but I don't care about my own Pokemon getting comically huge.
Pokemon designs are usually pretty simple so they end up looking like inflated balloons or parade floats anyway.

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Again, it's like they're out of touch with their customers and fans, and what they like about the Pokemon games.
They could have easily knocked it out the park by showing some new Megas of neglected old Pokemon.
Instead they seem to have scrapped ME, introduced a less interesting replacement, AND did the "thing" that's ratio-ed the E3 video.
They needed someone who they respected to summon them back to earth when they were making these design decisions.
(Perhaps Iwata, who heroically programmed Kanto into Gold/Silver, would have. RIP.)
 
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BP

Beers and Steers
is a Contributor to Smogon
Forget about Dynamaxing having the potential to fuck up competitive and casual play.
This is probably beating a dead horse at this point but I'm really disappointed in GFs decision with no national dex. Please let me know If I got some facts wrong so can reform my opinion. I'm going to look at this reasonably and try to be optimistic about the situation so people don't try and make me feel like garbage with the typical "HURDUR How dare you to criticize Game Freaks decision. Do you work for Gamefreak? Do you know if they have the resources? Making thousands of animations is hard!" Yes, unfortunately, I've seen a shit ton of these arguments shaming people for being upset about no Megas/ National Dex Fuck Z-moves.

Pokemon Sword and Shield are shaping up to be iffy games from my perspective mostly because of the national dex being cut. Hopefully, this is a ploy much like original Black and White (Which was a bad game imo) which only included the Unova Pokemon. There's a possibility that there could be a SS 2 that includes a national dex much as BW2 had a national dex. Realistically, I find this unlikely due to Pokemon like Bergmite, Machop, Eevee, Pikachu, and Wingull all appearing in the game. This is very alarming and frankly, I'm scared of what's to come.

It just seems like a compromise on the core of the series, and it essentially changes how we look at Sword/Shield and future games: instead of looking forward to what these games add, we will wonder what they’re taking away.
This is a fantastic analysis of the situation we're in. On a sillier note, Sword & Shield is like getting a divorce. We lose the house (Megas) and we can only see the kids every other weekend (other pokemon) but at least we get to see other women (play a new game)
 

NoCheese

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth!"
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Assuming there will still be a Tower/Subway/Maison/Tree equivalent, I'm hopeful that the local Dex will at least spawn some interesting "limitation breeds creativity" teams for the battle facilities.

We already got a small taste of this in this generation, as until Pokemon Bank arrived we were limited to a subset of Pokemon, but I think the effect may be greater for Sword and Shield. This is because this generation, we all knew Bank access to other Pokemon was coming, so there was a strong incentive to put together a "good enough" team for things like getting through battle 50, while waiting for full dex access before really trying for a monster streak. Now, knowing up front that we'll be limited to the local dex for the forseeable future (at least until the presumed Ultra Sword/Shield), there's suddenly an incentive to really push the limits of what's available rather than waiting for a complete dex. So much as I'll be saddened by the (likely) loss of my beloved Gliscor / Chansey / Mega Slowbro team, call me cautiously hopeful. But I do really hope that the inevitable follow-up game allows for full dex access, so we can play with old favorites on the Switch!
 
Been probably literal years since I've posted here. Figured I'd come to see what the consensus is on the new Pokedex thing.

I have to say, it's got me worried too. Also outright livid. But hopefully Showdown will have an all-inclusive meta and a Galar dex meta? That could actually be interesting. It'll be kinda like pre-PokeBank XY again. That could be genuinely interesting, at least! If I'm being honest, OU has kinda been feeling more like a Lower Ubers tier to me anyway. I'm all for legendaries being included in a meta if they're not broken, but when they are the meta, it's a bit ridiculous... Tapus, UBs, Landorus, Heatran, Black Kyurem... it's a bit excessive after a while. As far as Galar is concerned, they should've just had an in-game Galar League instead of just outright excluding things, but I'm still interested to see what Smogon and Showdown make of it all.

Actually, on that topic, has there been any official word yet about how the meta will be handled from here on out? Or even any word about upcoming discussion?
 

Ivy

resident enigma
is a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributor
Actually, on that topic, has there been any official word yet about how the meta will be handled from here on out? Or even any word about upcoming discussion?
DHR stated in the discord that there will "no doubt" be an OM (other metagame) that contains all 'mons, although that's not a guarantee—it's up to the OM community here to ensure that happens.
 
Tauros, Snorlax, and Mence weren't banned in their respective gens because they served as balancers for the meta, Gen 7 had one with Aegislash + Lando but they banned the former and now you need even dumber stuff like Magearna to check the busted mons. There's literally no reason to not be excited as Pokemon would have to get axed at SOME POINT by SOME GENERATION anyways.
Maybe it's me not being able to properly understand what you said here (i'm not an english native speaker), but Salamence and Garchomp weren't balancers of anything. Salamence was banned in Gen IV and I still remember the communicate from Smogon, its unpredictability and wide variety of sets -essentialy DD or MixMence- were too much to handle. And Garchomp was banned in its own generation (Gen IV), not only due to its typing and stats, but because its only ability was sand veil and you couldn't destroy team building banning Pokémon like T-tar, whose only ability was Sand Stream back then.

I don't see why I should get excited or how this reponds to the unpredictable effects of a meta we don't know anything about.

I'm willing to trust GameFreak this time around because honestly Dynamaxing is a great mechanic that lacks most of the mistakes Mega Evolutions and Z Moves had. For starters, it is a universal mechanic that can effect any Pokemon, giving them a set and predictable result as damage stays the same no matter what move you use. Second, this allows for much more versatile movesets, as this mechanic rewards wider movepools more than raw damage. This makes it strategic, as the HP buff and set moves can often allow you to have much more versatile movesets and handle much more Pokemon than a typical team of six can.
It's a simple oversize of the mon with more HP. The end. And a pool of unique moves, one for each type. Comparing this to a fully new design, with total BST changes, retaining of the Pokémon movepool while transformed, potential changes on their typings are abilities, shouldn't be discussed. In fact, there's no place for comparison.

I don't know if competitive is the only thing you care about, as this topic has been adressed before, but not only depics a sincere, complete lack of effort from Game Freak's part, one that i just objetively described, but this is less atractive in both senses, competitively and in regards to in-game content.

But again, if you think I should be equally interested in seeing a potencial Stantler evolution with new desing, new ability, maybe even new typing, and to see how all this changes can affect it in-game and competitively, as to just seeing the same Pokémon with size==6, sure. Sure it's a great, hard-worked mechanic.

C'mon, let's be serious for a moment and look at the obvious facts. Let's not lose to complacency.

I'll ignore the example you provide because of two reasons. One, it is theorymon and should be forbidden. Secondly, because an infinite number of similar examples and be depicted using Mega-Evolution. In fact, just due to te changes in BSpeed, Ability and Typing, anyone can do a far, far greater example of an ideal an hypothetical scenario in which all this elements combined turned a battle. There's no point. Just get the general idea. Oversizing a Pokémon and giving it 50% plus HP while transforming all its moves in unique attacks would never be more interesting than changing the Pokémon design, giving it a new BST distribution, a new typing or a new ability, or both. And less factor will be involucrated. Simple as that.
 
DHR stated in the discord that there will "no doubt" be an OM (other metagame) that contains all 'mons, although that's not a guarantee—it's up to the OM community here to ensure that happens.
It's a shame it's just going to be pushed off to the side as an OM. That means we probably lose all-inclusive versions of Ubers, UU, RU, etc. In fact, the more I consider coming back to Smogon, the more interested I am in trying out UU. OU's gotten a bit crazy lately. Also, if we lose all the legendaries that aren't Mew/new Galar ones, we might not even have much of an Ubers tier.
 
Honest question: can we talk about Pokemon Home here? I just realized that while the controversy might not affect the sales of Sword/Shield, it does (as far I see it) has the tiniest chance of screwing everyone over in the long run by not allowing us to transfer anything.

Pokemon Bank as far I'm aware isn't financed by Gamefreak's pocket (at least for the most part), so it could be argued that all the people suscribed to the service are the main ones keeping the servers afloat. If we assume most of the people supporting #BringBackTheNationalDex have suscribed to Bank at least once with the intention of transfering non regional mons to the games (whether it's because its your favorite, don't feel like training a new one, collect it or just simply use it for breeding), then wouldn't Gamefreak's silence regarding the matter ensure those people won't give Pokemon HOME a try? Wouldn't that ensure HOME's revenue will be far less of whatever amount of money Bank makes yearly? Wouldn't that make keeping HOME alive a burden from a business standpoint, thus potentially killing the service early?
 
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If you read through these posts, you can vaguely see that we're following the stages of grief:

Denial:
No way, this must be a misunderstanding
Anger: GF is a bunch of idiots
Bargaining: Maybe this is why they're doing this
Depression: (This is constant)
Acceptance: TBA
I honestly noticed that as I did study those stages before. However, I feel like arguing this is the time to get stuck in Anger and not let GF learn the wrong lesson. When I tried to pinpoint the possible logical reasons behind this, everything would only point back to present GF in negative light.

At least back then SuMn got lucky with sale as Pokemon GO craze made it record-breakingly popular. Now they have no start bonus like that.
 
There is something about Home that interests me.

Within the interview with Masuda and Ohmori, it was confirmed that there is currently no decision to bring the existing Pokémon that can't be in Sword & Shield back into the game using patches, but those that don't will still have an active role in Pokémon HOME.
I'm very curious about this. It seems to imply that Home will be more than just a storage system -- I'm not getting too excited, though. I think this could easily be an indication that it would be, say, a Pelago-like system -- the Pokémon in your boxes will farm berries, go on journeys to find evolution stones and the like. I actually wouldn't mind this too much personally - my main problem at the moment is that my non-transferables will have nothing to do, so the idea that Home might include even things as minor as Pelago or Refresh-like systems would help a lot.
 
I honestly noticed that as I did study those stages before. However, I feel like arguing this is the time to get stuck in Anger and not let GF learn the wrong lesson. When I tried to pinpoint the possible logical reasons behind this, everything would only point back to present GF in negative light.

At least back then SuMn got lucky with sale as Pokemon GO craze made it record-breakingly popular. Now they have no start bonus like that.
I for one, am staying angry, but also holding out hope that something will change.


There is something about Home that interests me.



I'm very curious about this. It seems to imply that Home will be more than just a storage system -- I'm not getting too excited, though. I think this could easily be an indication that it would be, say, a Pelago-like system -- the Pokémon in your boxes will farm berries, go on journeys to find evolution stones and the like. I actually wouldn't mind this too much personally - my main problem at the moment is that my non-transferables will have nothing to do, so the idea that Home might include even things as minor as Pelago or Refresh-like systems would help a lot.
While that would be cool, I still have a problem with being forced to have Pokemon HOME and pay for it when they should just be able to be transferred to SwSh and then I can cancel after that if I don't like it. I mean, personally I do use Bank annually, but that's because I want to, not because I have to. Also I can tell you, if it's any more than $5 a year like Bank, I ain't renewing it.
 
I for one, am staying angry, but also holding out hope that something will change.




While that would be cool, I still have a problem with being forced to have Pokemon HOME and pay for it when they should just be able to be transferred to SwSh and then I can cancel after that if I don't like it. I mean, personally I do use Bank annually, but that's because I want to, not because I have to. Also I can tell you, if it's any more than $5 a year like Bank, I ain't renewing it.
Something else interesting about Home actually is that I don't recall a fee being mentioned for it. I hardly imagine it will be free, but something I could see happening is it being part of Nintendo Switch Online. Nintendo have been talking a lot recently about needing to expand Online's offerings to entice more buyers - membership has been dropping off a lot recently; many people especially cancelled after the first month - and Pokémon makes sense as something that would attract people. It being on a mobile app is also consistent with other Nintendo Online things like Smash World and the Voice App.
 

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