Pokémon Thread XXIX: Sword, Shield, and Spoilers

[Grif]

In order; badly but that's because Blizzard is dumb as hell, well enough to get a sequel, well enough to revive an entire dead franchise and genre and give a ton of people hope in a new and improved Capcom.

so... very well actually, yeah.

Spoiler

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In my defense of defending it, I never fell into a pit. And if you touch one of the platforms you don't have to redo the ENTIRE area, they're safe spots.

Yeah that's fair. Maybe limiting that specific phrase, or maybe making Hop more frustrated about it as the game goes on, and then having Leon do the same dang thing to make you realize Hop thinks he's hot **** because he's emulating his brother. It'll help tie into the plot point that Hop's entire character is one that's about five seconds from slamming into a brick wall and it destroying him emotionally; and then Bede fights him and that exact thing happens. It's great.

... wait, to get SirFetch'd you need to zandatsu three people in a single battle? That's... absurd!! Very silly!

Tangential to the spoilers but not quite. Since when Pokemon had these obscure conditions for evolution? The last I recalled being a thing was Umbreon needing night to evolve and the opposite for Espeon, and I think Leaf/Ice Stone for the Gen 4 eevees? Did they tack these on since then? Seems rather absurd.

EDIT: now that I sat down and think, there's also the Alakazam thing which required a trade to evolve.

[LaZodiac]

Tangential to the spoilers but not quite. Since when Pokemon had these obscure conditions for evolution? The last I recalled being a thing was Umbreon needing night to evolve and the opposite for Espeon, and I think Leaf/Ice Stone for the Gen 4 eevees? Did they tack these on since then? Seems rather absurd.

To get the ninja slug and knight beetle pokemon, you need to trade them against each other. Pumpkaboo and PHantump will only evolve when traded against each other as well, if I recall. Inkay only evolves when you hold the system upside down while it gains a level. Yamask only evolves at a certain level when it knows a certain move that I don't think it ever naturally learns. Feebas evolves by maxing out it's Beauty stat, which isn't a thing in any gen but the one Feebas is in so they had to invent a trade item for it.

There's always been weirder evolutions, these things are just more common now since they're able to do them.

[Turalisj]

Currently shiny breeding for a Scorbunny, so I have plenty for trade.

[DataNinja]

To get the ninja slug and knight beetle pokemon, you need to trade them against each other. Pumpkaboo and PHantump will only evolve when traded against each other as well, if I recall. Inkay only evolves when you hold the system upside down while it gains a level. Yamask only evolves at a certain level when it knows a certain move that I don't think it ever naturally learns. Feebas evolves by maxing out it's Beauty stat, which isn't a thing in any gen but the one Feebas is in so they had to invent a trade item for it.

There's always been weirder evolutions, these things are just more common now since they're able to do them.

Karrablast And Shelmet you do need to trade against each other, but Pumpkaboo and Phantump are just trades period.

Yamask is simply level 34 - you're thinking of Piloswine into Mammoswine, probably. Unlike Tangela and Yanma, it needs to have Ancient Power tutored on. Or Poipole into Naganadel, which needs Dragon Pulse tutored on. ...which is also done stupidly, because it automatically learns Dragon Pulse on Evo, which will never be relevant.

[Saambell]

Eevee for Leafeon and Glaceon needed to level up in very certain parts of the map, near a certain rock. They have never used the leaf stone, while the ice stone was only introduced in gen 7, and only used for evolving Alolan Vulpix and Alolan Sandshrew. Sylveon needs stage two happiness, not friendship they are different, and to know a fairy move. Gen 4 had a trio of older mons evolve if they knew Ancient Power, one of which only could get that by way of move reminder. Yamask needs to lose 49 hp and walk under "pride rock" in the north end of the wild area. Inkay needs to reach a certain level then hold the game console upside down as you complete the battle.

In regards to haters of SwSh, theres simply not being happy with the game, then theres actively going around and spreading highly false warnings and issues that do not exist in an attempt to cripple peoples opinions of the game. Notable being a lie saying "playing in the wild area can destroy your switch cause GF used a breakable part of the switch to help run it". That is explicitly false info created to slander the game. People who go around claiming such while also spitting out #gamefreaklied are the worst kind of people.

[Seerow]

Spoiler

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I'll admit I didn't mind the spin cart or pitfinding. It was actually kinda fun and intense. The rumble reliance is definitely a No thing though.

Wait. Wait. Wait. That puzzle had a rumble element? I was playing on a switch lite that does not have rumble and thought it was the most frustrating thing ever because I only had super vague visual cues to go off of. That is by far the most annoying thing I have heard to date regarding this game.

I think you can wear different uniforms, you just need to change in advance at the clothing store, which is the only place to change clothes for no reason at all!

This is actually wrong. The uniforms you get let you change into that uniform while walking around (including mixing and matching pieces which is kind of nice), but for all major battles you change back into the default uniform no matter what.

As an aside haven't had any time to play last couple days so still haven't gone to catch my doggo. Hopefully sometime in the next few days.

[Qwertystop]

Or Poipole into Naganadel, which needs Dragon Pulse tutored on. ...which is also done stupidly, because it automatically learns Dragon Pulse on Evo, which will never be relevant.

I bet it's there to make random trainer generation sometimes use the move. Do Naganadel ever show up in the Battle Tree?

In regards to haters of SwSh, theres simply not being happy with the game, then theres actively going around and spreading highly false warnings and issues that do not exist in an attempt to cripple peoples opinions of the game. Notable being a lie saying "playing in the wild area can destroy your switch cause GF used a breakable part of the switch to help run it". That is explicitly false info created to slander the game. People who go around claiming such while also spitting out #gamefreaklied are the worst kind of people.

I haven't heard that one – the closest I heard was that it would wipe your SD card, which seems to be actually true in certain circumstances but is actually traceable (at least in part) to using an SD card formatted with exFAT (nominally unsupported by the Switch but mostly works anyway, to my limited understanding) instead of FAT32. Possibly some combination of that and something about how the autosave in SwSh works, making it more common there? Or just a lot more people playing one game so an existing problem starts coming up a lot more?

[deuterio12]

In order; badly but that's because Blizzard is dumb as hell, well enough to get a sequel, well enough to revive an entire dead franchise and genre and give a ton of people hope in a new and improved Capcom.

so... very well actually, yeah.

Mega Man 11 is reported as having sold around 1 million.

After more than 1 year out there.

Meanwhile newcomer Dragon's Dogma sold 4.8 millions.

The Resident Evil 2 Remake released this year sold over 4 millions already.

The latest megaman selling only 1 million in over a year is not "very well". It's pretty lackluster even by Capcom's own standards.

So that leaves only Diablo III doing kinda well after a long break (while Starcraft II really failed to live up to its predecessor), and even then Diablo III still had more than its fair share of controversy with the real-money in-game market and whatnot. So the odds of Pokémon taking a long break and things ending up better aren't that good.

[Seerow]

Mega Man 11 is reported as having sold around 1 million.

After more than 1 year out there.

Meanwhile newcomer Dragon's Dogma sold 4.8 millions.

The Resident Evil 2 Remake released this year sold over 4 millions already.

The latest megaman selling only 1 million in over a year is not "very well". It's pretty lackluster even by Capcom's own standards.

So that leaves only Diablo III doing kinda well after a long break (while Starcraft II really failed to live up to its predecessor), and even then Diablo III still had more than its fair share of controversy with the real-money in-game market and whatnot. So the odds of Pokémon taking a long break and things ending up better aren't that good.

Are you measuring success by core fan reaction or sales?

Because by core fan reaction, Diablo III may have been a flop (because it was not a d2 clone and had a rocky launch with some iffy design decisions that got corrected relatively quickly), but in terms of sales it is one of the top selling games of all time, and still has an active player base 6 years after release. I don't see how that is marginal by any standard.

If you're looking only at core fan reaction, Megaman 11 is pretty successful, all reviews I've seen for it are positive, the problem is it just doesn't have a large enough fanbase left to support the franchise after years of mediocre games.


I have no real skin in the game one way or the other, because I can easily see it going either way. On one hand I would like to see pokemon reimagine itself, on the other hand as much as I can enjoy thinking about ways I would enjoy them doing a total reimagining, I can imagine just as many ways they could try that would kill the series for me. Meanwhile, a new game every 1-2 years means I consistently get a game I know I will enjoy with minor progressive updates.

[DataNinja]

Spoiler

Show

Wait. Wait. Wait. That puzzle had a rumble element? I was playing on a switch lite that does not have rumble and thought it was the most frustrating thing ever because I only had super vague visual cues to go off of. That is by far the most annoying thing I have heard to date regarding this game.

This is actually wrong. The uniforms you get let you change into that uniform while walking around (including mixing and matching pieces which is kind of nice), but for all major battles you change back into the default uniform no matter what.

Spoiler

Show

Yeeeep. It's a pulsing rumble that gets more intense as you near a pit. No visual clues whatsoever. I can only imagine how terrible it must've been with no information, geez.

And, okay, glad I didn't miss out on something regarding uniforms.

I bet it's there to make random trainer generation sometimes use the move. Do Naganadel ever show up in the Battle Tree?

No idea. I'm a casual, so Battle Facilities are far beyond my abilities. The only places I've ever really gotten prizes for were back in Emerald with a Silver Symbol at the Battle Pike, and in Platinum with a Silver Symbol at the Battle Casino. Noticing a trend?

[deuterio12]

Are you measuring success by core fan reaction or sales?

Because by core fan reaction, Diablo III may have been a flop (because it was not a d2 clone and had a rocky launch with some iffy design decisions that got corrected relatively quickly), but in terms of sales it is one of the top selling games of all time, and still has an active player base 6 years after release. I don't see how that is marginal by any standard.

If you're looking only at core fan reaction, Megaman 11 is pretty successful, all reviews I've seen for it are positive, the problem is it just doesn't have a large enough fanbase left to support the franchise after years of mediocre games.

Except it wasn't a matter of years of mediocre games.

It was a matter of years of no actual new mainline megaman games at all. Megaman 10 comes out in 2010, and then there's only the streetfighter crossover fighting game and two legacy collections until 2018.

And yes, Diablo III ended up doing kinda well after a long break, but at this rate it's more the exception than the rule (again, look at Starcraft II from the very same company).

But Megaman's only gonna go down from here. There's just too few fans remaining after the long wait, and Capcom's not gonna bother doing another megaman anytime soon when all their other franchises are selling much better.

I have no real skin in the game one way or the other, because I can easily see it going either way. On one hand I would like to see pokemon reimagine itself, on the other hand as much as I can enjoy thinking about ways I would enjoy them doing a total reimagining, I can imagine just as many ways they could try that would kill the series for me. Meanwhile, a new game every 1-2 years means I consistently get a game I know I will enjoy with minor progressive updates.

Precisely, steady work output is a lot more reliable than delaying as much as possible.

[Qwertystop]

But Megaman's only gonna go down from here. There's just too few fans remaining after the long wait, and Capcom's not gonna bother doing another megaman anytime soon when all their other franchises are selling much better.

Well, after those two (or three, or four, depending on how you count – Classic and X both had two parts, and Classic's parts released on different days) legacy collections they've got another one coming for Zero and ZX (in one collection). If they keep that up they can add on Legacy Collections for Legends, Battle Network, and Star Force to stay in the news for a few more years; I'd be surprised if they haven't got at least one of those in the works unannounced already. All of those can be used to fish out how much demand there might be – it looks like the Classic one sold pretty well, which is probably a big part of why they made 11. X, Zero, Battle Network, and Star Force all had narrative endings that might make it tricky to continue them too directly, but Classic could go on forever without much change to the formula (look at Mario), ZX ended on a sequel hook they never followed up on, and Legends 3 was in development but cancelled. Plus it's an IP that's going to have name recognition for ages even if they don't do anything, between its status as a classic-that-still-mostly-holds-up and the intermittent cameos. Maybe it'll never be as big as it was, but with copyright lasting as long as it does... the IP may not be gold, but it might be silver.

Then again, I guessed wrong on Pokemon fans being turned off by the price bump, so who knows.

[oxybe]

So my work has a rewards program.

do well on monthly/quarterly reviews and get some points. redeem the at the warehouse site for stuff. I've been sitting on a bunch and decided to redeem for a game.

I've been hesitant to get it, as a lot of the issues mentionned here and elsewhere and stuff I saw while people were playing it on stream or YouTube made it look... average?

Some QoL stuff I heard about and or saw are great if it works as advertised: the nature changing items for example. big double thumbs up to GF!

I like some of the new mon designs: some aren't my cup of polteageist (see wat i did there), but others like frostmoth are right up my alley. seeing as how even gen1 had Ball and SwapColourBiggerBall as pokemon, I've accepted that not all mons are beautiful in my eyes, but I accept them for what they are. Also: Galarian Wheezing with his mutton chops and stovepipe hat are ready to lead the industrial revolution... in my heart.

some gimmicks I'm ambivalent towards: camping feels like a bit of a pokemon ami sidegrade, which is definitely a cute addon I'm not against but something I could ultimately live without. Gigantamax I'm not sold on, but it's not like Mega Evolution and Zmoves didn't both grow tiresome to me and I want them to return in it's place: I would rather they focus more on making interesting moves, pokemon or battle types that play with the core Phy/Sp rock-paper-scissor dynamic of pokemon, then give different flavours of rocket launchers to each player.

I'm sad to see we can't have mons follow us like in let's go, and given a choice I'd take secret bases (secret camping spots?) over curry.

but other issues, especially technical ones, do cause concern: the draw distance for when pokemon and people appear and disappear make the big free camera world seem kinda empty in the videos I saw, and what I heard about the limited exploration at times (big set pieces you can go to but not really explore the inside), the overall presentation that looks like a higher quality 3DS game and not a game that came out on the sane console as Breath of the Wild, or even the more cartoony/animated Mario Odyssey or Luigi's Mansion 3. The save bug worries me too. And of course the 400+pokepound gorilla in the room: dexit and reused animations/sprites.

I'm gonna give it a go though. I fully expect a solid core pokemon experience, but how my worries will play out has yet to be determined.

[Fin]

Hi folks, quick question is this the place to see if anyone would be able to trade a non-English language Ditto for Masuda method? I’m playing on Pokemon Shield.

I have a 4 IV Ditto to trade back and I don’t mind what quality the Ditto I get is, as long as it’s not English.

Also I have Grookys if you prefer and need one of them

EDIT: Just an FYI I am in the UK so my time zone is GMT. Not sure if that’s important or not

[Fable Wright]

There's something that deeply bothers me about Sword and Shield:

Dragapult.

It's a B-2 Spirit. There's no other way to describe it. The flying wing shape. Drakloak evolves into it. It has Infiltrator. The unique dragon/ghost typing when its name is the B-2 Spirit. Fires Dreepy missiles. The low-defense high-power/speed stats. It's just a B-2.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's an amazing pokemon in a vacuum, and I actually kinda love it. But why is it in PokeUK? How are those things not restricted to Unova? It even has the Unova evolution thing where it's a stage 1 until level 50! What are you trying to tell me, GameFreak?!

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I've decided I like dynamaxing in regular 6v6 singles matches. If used properly it can usually give you an answer to any one particularly annoying Pokémon. A wall keeps restoring just more damage than you can deal? Dynamaxing. A sweeper pulls a one hit KO on anything you have? Dynamaxing. They have a Pokémon that sets up weather or terrain you can't deal with? Dynamaxing. It comes closer to the anime style of Pokémon battling, where the winning move is usually improvized rather than planned before even going into battle. Dynamaxing the right Pokémon at the right time is like that. And because it only lasts three turns the overall power it adds to the battle is still sort of limited.

However, I don't think I like it for what I had decided was my favorite metagame, 2v2 doubles. You'll only be using two Pokémon, so you pretty much need to dynamax one of them, because free power spike. With mega evolutions and Z-moves at least had a cost in the form of a held item, dynamaxing doesn't even have that trade-off. However, the dynamaxed movepool is even more limited than the Z-moves movepool. There are a lot of cool tricks a dynamaxed Pokémon can't use. Which is fine in a normal battle, because it's just one Pokémon for 3 turns. In this much more aggressive meta it's half your team for often pretty much the whole match. So instead of giving you extra options it limits your options.

Typical gamefreak, pandering to tens of millions of happy users over the sixty or so of us that like an obscure rules variant.

[Emmerlaus]

There's something that deeply bothers me about Sword and Shield:

Dragapult.

It's a B-2 Spirit. There's no other way to describe it. The flying wing shape. Drakloak evolves into it. It has Infiltrator. The unique dragon/ghost typing when its name is the B-2 Spirit. Fires Dreepy missiles. The low-defense high-power/speed stats. It's just a B-2.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's an amazing pokemon in a vacuum, and I actually kinda love it. But why is it in PokeUK? How are those things not restricted to Unova? It even has the Unova evolution thing where it's a stage 1 until level 50! What are you trying to tell me, GameFreak?!

What bothers me is Intellon... First they humanize him and then doesnt give him ANY move to hide away like a cameleon (Acid Armor in the anime, Camouflage, etc). Even a new move that increase its evasion would have being appreciated for flavor. That's just lazy design.

So yeah, I had my up and down with this generation of Pokemon. Fortunatly, we still had Appletun and Bolthund (even if I might not play him, he is just the best boy lol).

[Bartmanhomer]

We should have a Generation 8 tournament.

[Qwertystop]

I've decided I like dynamaxing in regular 6v6 singles matches. If used properly it can usually give you an answer to any one particularly annoying Pokémon. A wall keeps restoring just more damage than you can deal? Dynamaxing. A sweeper pulls a one hit KO on anything you have? Dynamaxing. They have a Pokémon that sets up weather or terrain you can't deal with? Dynamaxing. It comes closer to the anime style of Pokémon battling, where the winning move is usually improvized rather than planned before even going into battle. Dynamaxing the right Pokémon at the right time is like that. And because it only lasts three turns the overall power it adds to the battle is still sort of limited.

However, I don't think I like it for what I had decided was my favorite metagame, 2v2 doubles. You'll only be using two Pokémon, so you pretty much need to dynamax one of them, because free power spike. With mega evolutions and Z-moves at least had a cost in the form of a held item, dynamaxing doesn't even have that trade-off. However, the dynamaxed movepool is even more limited than the Z-moves movepool. There are a lot of cool tricks a dynamaxed Pokémon can't use. Which is fine in a normal battle, because it's just one Pokémon for 3 turns. In this much more aggressive meta it's half your team for often pretty much the whole match. So instead of giving you extra options it limits your options.

Typical gamefreak, pandering to tens of millions of happy users over the sixty or so of us that like an obscure rules variant.

What about 4v4 doubles, which seems to be the standard for official competitive matches last I checked?

[Seafarer]

I bet it's there to make random trainer generation sometimes use the move. Do Naganadel ever show up in the Battle Tree?

Battle event Pokémon have pre-generated movesets. It's probably just there for flavour. Or so that hacked wild Naganadel always have it.

Last thing: Did anyone figure out how Obstagoon's evolution works? Serebii says level up to 35 at night and it'll evolve. I was playing around midnight and leveled from 35-45 with no evolution in sight. Some googling led me to news articles that implied it needs to fight a lot, and may take as late as level 55, but no specific mechanics were there. Like will it only evolve if EVs are maxed? Is there some internal counter for how many foes linoone knocks out? Does it require multiple knock outs in the same battle? At this rate I feel like I'm going to need to luck into finding one in a max raid battle.

Day and night don't really apply outside the Wild Area. If you want to evolve anything that needs a time of day, it has to be in there.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

What about 4v4 doubles, which seems to be the standard for official competitive matches last I checked?

Falls somewhere in between probably. You're less likely to encounter one Pokémon you just cannot deal with than in singles because you always have the option to double down on one mon (athough the weather/terrain function of the dynamax moves sure is handy here, maybe even a bit too handy), and when dynamaxed you lose a lot of the cool doubles utility of your moves (but you gain some limited other utility). But on the other hand the standard 4v4 doubles is less fastpaced than the 2v2 variant and you switch Pokémon several times during a match, which means there's a lot more strategy involved in picking your moment and your mon for dynamaxing. In 2v2 it's one mon or the other on usually turn one, or maybe turn 2 or 3 if you have a specific reason. In 4v4 it's one of the four when partnered with one of the other three while facing a specific opponent, or after a specific opponent has been taken out, or after the other guy has already dynamaxed, or when a specific opponent is probably about to switch in, or after you got a setup move in, or... Stuff like that, a lot more variables to think about. It's probably not as good/fun for doubles as it is for singles, but I don't think it's bad, or overly dominant.

But I haven't really played that format yet in the new gen, so this is a bit of an extrapolation just based on what I have tried.

(There's also a 1v1 format, that place is just "dynamax everything" right now.)

[Bartmanhomer]

Well, I tried the Pokemon Showdown Gen 8 OU Game. They change a lot in this and they banned so many Pokemon in OU. But it's a good game overall. I'll give this simulation a 4 out of 5 stars.

[Fable Wright]

Well, I tried the Pokemon Showdown Gen 8 OU Game. They change a lot in this and they banned so many Pokemon in OU. But it's a good game overall. I'll give this simulation a 4 out of 5 stars.

What do you mean by "Banned"? Are you talking about the Dexit'd pokemon, or did they figure out whether Dynamax Gyarados was Ubers yet?

[Bartmanhomer]

What do you mean by "Banned"? Are you talking about the Dexit'd pokemon, or did they figure out whether Dynamax Gyarados was Ubers yet?

I can't use any Legendary Pokemon such as Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres because it banned. Also I can't used Magmar and the original Rapidash because it banned as well. Gen 8 OU restricted a lot of Pokemon.

[Fable Wright]

I can't use any Legendary Pokemon such as Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres because it banned. Also I can't used Magmar and the original Rapidash because it banned as well. Gen 8 OU restricted a lot of Pokemon.

Oh, no. They're not banned. They simply don't exist in Gen 8 OU.

Remember people complaining about Dexit/Pokemon Snap/however you want to describe throwing out half the Pokedex in one swoop?

Welcome to the reason why people were complaining.

[Bartmanhomer]

Oh, no. They're not banned. They simply don't exist in Gen 8 OU.

Remember people complaining about Dexit/Pokemon Snap/however you want to describe throwing out half the Pokedex in one swoop?

Welcome to the reason why people were complaining.

Please tell me that I'm in a horrible nightmare where most older Generations Pokemon doesn't exist in Generation 8 OU.

[Fable Wright]

Please tell me that I'm in a horrible nightmare where most older Generations Pokemon doesn't exist in Generation 8 OU.

You are in a horrible nightmare where most older generations Pokemon don't exist in Generation 8, period.

Unfortunately, the nightmare is called 'real life'.

[Bartmanhomer]

You are in a horrible nightmare where most older generations Pokemon don't exist in Generation 8, period.

Unfortunately, the nightmare is called 'real life'.

Nooooooooo.........

[Saambell]

There should be another meta you can join called "Gen 8 Nat Dex" or something like it. That one should have everything available. If its not there, there's at least plans to make it, so just be calm and wait.

[Bartmanhomer]

There should be another meta you can join called "Gen 8 Nat Dex" or something like it. That one should have everything available. If its not there, there's at least plans to make it, so just be calm and wait.

Better then nothing I always say. There's still hope to come yet.