Pokémon Thread XXIX: Sword, Shield, and Spoilers

[Aotrs Commander]

So it's been "confirmed" that the expansion pass are version exclusive. That means if I somehow own both games and want to visit the Isle of Armour in Sword, I'll need a separate expansion pass then the one I theoretically got for Shield.

This seems to be due to the differences in the pokemon roster available in each pass (so you won't be able to catch all the 200+ new pokemon with just one pass, you either need to buy the second one or, again, trade).

Again that's a second 37$CAN pass on top of the 80$CAN base price if you're a friendless newbie going for the full dex completion/competitive play.

they might not have directly made a third Pokemon Gun companion game to go with Sword and Shield, but dang that's aggressive pricing for the extra content, especially since we lack the old GTS "I'm looking for X and trading a charmander"

Whelp, I think that cements my decision that passing on SwSh was the right thing for me to do.

Actually, looking on Amazon, oof, £45 for SwSh? Full +28% of the price of the previous games? Yikes. Well, that would have placed it well outside my "put on Christsmas list" anyway.)

£80+ for the full experience for a game that does not seem like it would give me more than twice the playtime of the previous games? (Plus frack knows how much for the new console and whatever they want to charge for the Bank replacement?)

Hells, no, Nintendo. If you want me to spend that kind of money, you need to be having a game that a single playthrough takes 200+ hours (of which grinding/collecting/breeding is not part of that count).

So, I think I made the right call, there. Had I bought a Switch and gotten the games, I'd be feeling some of the FOMO, certainly (which is, of course, how business practises are all geared for now, that an banking on consumer apathy); now I can just sigh, and nod my head in recognition that the current team I'm working in X for AS will defninitely likely be the last time I do it, period. Sadly. *shrug*

[DataNinja]

£80+ for the full experience for a game that does not seem like it would give me more than twice the playtime of the previous games?

I do very, very much understand blanching at the price jump... but I'm more honestly impressed that they managed to keep the DS prices in general down. I don't think it's that fair to compare pricings from an older, smaller system to those of a more modern console. It's just not feasible to keep prices frozen like that.

It's understandable not wanting to pay that price, and I don't begrudge you for it, but I definitely think that they probably could have raised the prices on the prior games, but didn't - meaning that, when things finally did snap, there was always going to be a problematic comparison there. The jump to console just kinda… was a natural point for that.

[Aotrs Commander]

I do very, very much understand blanching at the price jump... but I'm more honestly impressed that they managed to keep the DS prices in general down. I don't think it's that fair to compare pricings from an older, smaller system to those of a more modern console. It's just not feasible to keep prices frozen like that.

It's understandable not wanting to pay that price, and I don't begrudge you for it, but I definitely think that they probably could have raised the prices on the prior games, but didn't - meaning that, when things finally did snap, there was always going to be a problematic comparison there. The jump to console just kinda… was a natural point for that.

I've always felt "it's a console, so we can charge more" to have been... Not a defensible position at the best of times (but especially since the advantages of consoles over PC of them not requiring patches and just working when you put the disc/cartridge in have departed) as has often been the case that console games have been more expensive than PCs in the middle-past. Until more current years, where the "triple AAAAAAAAAAA" industry has been charging extortionate (sometimes genuniely not hyperbolically) prices, anyway. (Fortunately for me the "triple AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" industry has long-since ceased to produce games that I wouldn't play if they paid ME extortionate money; it's just a bit... Yeah, to see Nintendo potentially start to meander in that direction as well.)

[Emmerlaus]

I have little faith for Game Freak to give us a BIG DLC worthy of that game tag. Not after what they did. I'll check some online gameplay if needed.

======

I think Choboco Rakdos is a cool new look for him though. Pretty much the only thing that got me really excited.

DOnt like how Garchomp is making a return, FLygon is my favorite among ground/dragon ... but thast just me LOL

[oxybe]

Choboco Rakdos

As someone who used to play Magic Competitively, I did a double take.

Rakdos the Defiler: the Lord of Riots, the Showstopper himself... in chocobo footie pajamas.

Yes. I need that card.

[Spore]

Pokemon Black 2 is 70 Euros here. You should not complain about 45 pound, or 49 Euros, but about the content given to you. The games are very fine, except a few huge blemishes.

The nature zone looks horrible, the story feels rushed after a very strong start, particularly just before the Fairy gym, where you don't take part in the story anymore, with a grandiose finale of fighting through the villainous team only to be faced with a poorly done fakeout.

The game even picks up on quality in the post game to be honest. But still, 30 euros is just too expensive. I judge this on the expected expansion playability for noncompetitive people. One major NPC is introduced (per version so they have even less depth because they need to be slotted into the same stories) plus Leon's mentor (as if we didn't do enough time hearing about the great Leon) meaning I expect 6-8 hours of gameplay.

And you just know the majority of buyers have to buy it because of invaluable moves and pokes for competitive battling (mandatory for uber players, strongly recommended for OU players).

[Emmerlaus]

As someone who used to play Magic Competitively, I did a double take.

Rakdos the Defiler: the Lord of Riots, the Showstopper himself... in chocobo footie pajamas.

Yes. I need that card.

Well know you know how to nickname your future Galarian Zapdos lol

By the way, I undertand Pokemon Sw/Sh is not a bad game. But its still not worth the price tag. The game is disappointing on too many levels to be honest. And I dont play competively so I dont care about buying the game.

DataNinja: To each their own. For me, if the Pokemon game doesnt have a decent story, it shouldnt have one at all. Make it a openworld with Pokemon to catch. No big bad who want to conquer the world or anything like that. Just put interesting characters and good dialogues.

[Aotrs Commander]

Pokemon Black 2 is 70 Euros here. You should not complain about 45 pound, or 49 Euros, but about the content given to you.

The fact some places in the world get charged very ACTUALLY extortionate amounts for stuff is an even WORSE travesty. You having to pay twice the price for games is sickening, frankly, and itself is an utterly undefendable policy that, were I in charge... Let's just say heads would rolling; and I DON'T mean metaphorically.



(Paradox, at least, seems (or seemed) to make some effort in some places to price according to what can actually be afforded (and that one time when they tried raising the prices because they could, funnily enough, they had enough backlash they had to not only reverse it sharpish, but hand out free goodies - strangely enough, for instance, the UK players were not pleased at a +20% or something price increase (for DIGITAL PRODUCTS) simply because someone snotty expletive decided that we should just pay more, let alone the places were the prices had gone up stupidly high levels to the point where people wouldn't have been able to afford it). They might have back-slid more quietly, perhaps, but there was a point they were trying.)

[DataNinja]

One major NPC is introduced (per version so they have even less depth because they need to be slotted into the same stories)

They did decently, enough, I feel, with Brendan and May - even back in the original Emerald, let alone ORAS - in being able to set them apart. And that was with using basically the same character. (I really do miss them doing that, where the two rivals aren't just fully interchangeable characters.) So, I feel there is some potential there. Hopefully.

...lots of room to also squander it, though.

[Saambell]

The fact some places in the world get charged very ACTUALLY extortionate amounts for stuff is an even WORSE travesty. You having to pay twice the price for games is sickening, frankly, and itself is an utterly undefendable policy that, were I in charge... Let's just say heads would rolling; and I DON'T mean metaphorically.



(Paradox, at least, seems (or seemed) to make some effort in some places to price according to what can actually be afforded (and that one time when they tried raising the prices because they could, funnily enough, they had enough backlash they had to not only reverse it sharpish, but hand out free goodies - strangely enough, for instance, the UK players were not pleased at a +20% or something price increase (for DIGITAL PRODUCTS) simply because someone snotty expletive decided that we should just pay more, let alone the places were the prices had gone up stupidly high levels to the point where people wouldn't have been able to afford it). They might have back-slid more quietly, perhaps, but there was a point they were trying.)

Paradox? The Crusader Kings 2 Guys? The guys who make games with literally Hundreds of Dollars worth of DLC? And every one of their games has at least 100$ worth of DLC? Which instantly removes people from being able to pick up a game after its been out for months due to the enormous price tag? Sure, Crusader Kings 2 is now Free to Play due to CK3 on the way, but there's still 300$ CAD of DLC for the game. With the other 2 DLC bundle packs being 43$ and 185$. "Paradox prices their DLC fairly" is a dumb statement to make when they pumped out SO MUCH of it that there's literally over 300$ Worth of it.

Meanwhile with SwSh Armour and Crown, you don't even need the DLC for the mons, as long as you either know people or get lucky with Surprise Trade. So the only thing you pay for is the extra areas, and if you only care about the mons, they can all be traded from someone else who did buy the DLC. If only we knew of a forum that had people who played pokemon, and could trade things if you asked.

[Silfir]

Paradox? The Crusader Kings 2 Guys? The guys who make games with literally Hundreds of Dollars worth of DLC? And every one of their games has at least 100$ worth of DLC? Which instantly removes people from being able to pick up a game after its been out for months due to the enormous price tag? Sure, Crusader Kings 2 is now Free to Play due to CK3 on the way, but there's still 300$ CAD of DLC for the game. With the other 2 DLC bundle packs being 43$ and 185$. "Paradox prices their DLC fairly" is a dumb statement to make when they pumped out SO MUCH of it that there's literally over 300$ Worth of it.

Meanwhile with SwSh Armour and Crown, you don't even need the DLC for the mons, as long as you either know people or get lucky with Surprise Trade. So the only thing you pay for is the extra areas, and if you only care about the mons, they can all be traded from someone else who did buy the DLC. If only we knew of a forum that had people who played pokemon, and could trade things if you asked.

In oder to "pick up" Crusader Kings II, you buy exactly zero of its DLC. You've got plenty to get to grips with just learning to play the base game.

All of the DLC is optional, and some straight-up is pointless unless you have a very specific interest to satisfy. Like Rajas of India. You buy it if you want to putz around on the eastern edge of the map and that's it. You have to actually have played the game for a while and do a little research to figure out if a certain DLC is even worth looking at. I don't understand how the mindset "If a game has paid gameplay DLC, I have to buy all of it" continually crops up.



As for Pokémon - I found Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon odious enough because, by all accounts, they change very little over Pokémon Sun, which I own already, and thus weren't worth buying. In hindsight, I would have quite liked to wait until Ultra Sun/Moon were out and skip the regular version entirely. Similarly for Pearl, since I didn't end up getting Platinum at all, but at least that took two years to make and had a little more to show for it.

One complaint I find difficult to sympathize, by the way, is the one that buying the expansion for Sword doesn't count for if you also own Shield and vice versa, and thus you have to buy the expansion twice if you own both games. If you already own both Sword and Shield, as far as I'm concerned you're beyond hope already. At some point, the thought "Is this really worth all that money?" should enter a person's mind. That point is different for everyone. I personally didn't think even one copy of Sword/Shield was worth the investment, so I can hardly comment meaningfully on the expansion.

I do think that any person who actually bought the Sword/Shield expansion (or is actively defending it) can't also rail against Paradox' DLC practices and retain their credibility. But that's just me.

[Saambell]

In oder to "pick up" Crusader Kings II, you buy exactly zero of its DLC. You've got plenty to get to grips with just learning to play the base game.

All of the DLC is optional, and some straight-up is pointless unless you have a very specific interest to satisfy. Like Rajas of India. You buy it if you want to putz around on the eastern edge of the map and that's it. You have to actually have played the game for a while and do a little research to figure out if a certain DLC is even worth looking at. I don't understand how the mindset "If a game has paid gameplay DLC, I have to buy all of it" continually crops up.



As for Pokémon - I found Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon odious enough because, by all accounts, they change very little over Pokémon Sun, which I own already, and thus weren't worth buying. In hindsight, I would have quite liked to wait until Ultra Sun/Moon were out and skip the regular version entirely. Similarly for Pearl, since I didn't end up getting Platinum at all, but at least that took two years to make and had a little more to show for it.

One complaint I find difficult to sympathize, by the way, is the one that buying the expansion for Sword doesn't count for if you also own Shield and vice versa, and thus you have to buy the expansion twice if you own both games. If you already own both Sword and Shield, as far as I'm concerned you're beyond hope already. At some point, the thought "Is this really worth all that money?" should enter a person's mind. That point is different for everyone. I personally didn't think even one copy of Sword/Shield was worth the investment, so I can hardly comment meaningfully on the expansion.

I do think that any person who actually bought the Sword/Shield expansion (or is actively defending it) can't also rail against Paradox' DLC practices and retain their credibility. But that's just me.

And that's the thing with the Armour and Crown expansion. Its also entirely optional. All the mons will be added to the base game, in code at least. So trading/transferring alone gets you all the stuff besides the areas and NPCs. All the areas do is let you catch the pokemon in your own game, but someone else can totally trade you everything the DLC adds. Since I'm part of a few pokemon communities I am totally planning to skip the expansion until I get word it actually adds something actually of note. Let some other schmuck pay for the thing, I'm just going to leech off them.

[oxybe]

Well know you know how to nickname your future Galarian Zapdos lol

I hate that I actually really, really dig the Galar Zapdos design. Masked Articuno and Edgy Moltres are a meme and a meh, but what looks like a badass lightning/ground legendary roadrunner? It hits my aesthetic, to borrow the kiddos's slang.

What I wouldn't give to swap my stupid bike for a PokeRide GalarZapdos, crank up the Samba de Chocobo and just style across the wild area.

[Aotrs Commander]

Paradox? The Crusader Kings 2 Guys? The guys who make games with literally Hundreds of Dollars worth of DLC? And every one of their games has at least 100$ worth of DLC? Which instantly removes people from being able to pick up a game after its been out for months due to the enormous price tag? Sure, Crusader Kings 2 is now Free to Play due to CK3 on the way, but there's still 300$ CAD of DLC for the game. With the other 2 DLC bundle packs being 43$ and 185$. "Paradox prices their DLC fairly" is a dumb statement to make when they pumped out SO MUCH of it that there's literally over 300$ Worth of it.

Well, if someone is daft enough not to wait for one of their frequent sales (which I did and always do), for a start, and for a second, to try buy it all at once (which I did not), especially if you are not 100% convinced you'll like it?

My first playthrough of CK2 (which I have still not finished) stands at over 440 hours, which is more than the amount of time than I have have spent in any three Pokémon games. At the point I've played a game for 200+ hours on a single playthrough it has officially reached the point it's allowed to have more money spent on it. What I did with stuff like CK2 and EUIV? Bought no more than £35's worth when I bought it, played it for about that long (200 hours was my first game oif EUIV), nodded my head and said "yep, I enjoyed that," and then bought more expansions.

If SwSh gave you that kind of playtime (quality play-time, mind, like, story-mode playtime, not artifically inflated play-time from catching/breeding/level-grinding that you do while killing time when you're out or something which I do not quantify as "proper" playtime), than I would be inclined to take it at it's word when it annouces an expansion.

As it stands, CK2 has cost me less, or about the same (and in much smaller chunks), I suspect, that it ShSw would (Switch+game+expansion) and I'm pretty certain I would not get 440 hours out of it. (I've only had 200 hours of X because it was the Gen VII-only portion of my living-dex game and has done the team-breeding for, what, 6-7 other games?)




Truth be told, it is increasingly infrequent for me to buy ANY game full-price on release unless I'm kickstartering it (or there's a very good deal (like more than 10% off) on, but then it's not full-price, is it?) I virtually NEVER play a game on release nowadays, not infrequently leaving it often up to a year for them to add expansions and/or get all the bugs out - and because I'll typically be in the middle of playing something else when something comes out anyway. The only time I will now consider buying a game at full price on release (now Pokémon has moved away from what I want to play) is if I am not currently playing anything else at that particular moment and I want to play that game now. (This does not happen every often.) Otherwise, I'll wait.

[DataNinja]

I do feel like the mentality of not paying full price for anything is... kinda a bit of a problematic one. Because it does breed the expectation that games are only worth that much. And I don't think that's very healthy to have for a perpetuating industry - games are getting more expensive to make, so it's that kind of mentality that does drive companies towards DLC and microtransactions and whatnot - to push prices later.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I do feel like the mentality of not paying full price for anything is... kinda a bit of a problematic one. Because it does breed the expectation that games are only worth that much. And I don't think that's very healthy to have for a perpetuating industry - games are getting more expensive to make, so it's that kind of mentality that does drive companies towards DLC and microtransactions and whatnot - to push prices later.

The problem is there is nothing stopping the gaming industry from raising the prices up front AND doing microtransactions/DLC on top of it.

[Aotrs Commander]

I do feel like the mentality of not paying full price for anything is... kinda a bit of a problematic one. Because it does breed the expectation that games are only worth that much. And I don't think that's very healthy to have for a perpetuating industry - games are getting more expensive to make, so it's that kind of mentality that does drive companies towards DLC and microtransactions and whatnot - to push prices later.

Why buy something that I'm not going to immediately use?

Digital stuff isn't like physical stuff, where a) you have to either go and buy it or have it delivered and b) there is a limited quantity that might run out (or the price might go up extortionately, in the case of books...)

(Hell, I don't THAT often buy PHYSICAL products I'm not going to use in short order, and a good chunk of my books and DVDs go on my birthday/Christmas list (as games did, before they essentially made hard-copy games pointless - and Pokémon was the last hold-out for that (but not at £45, that's more than I have ever expected for main Christmas present.))

Like the current BattleTech expansion. I'm currently hip-deep in the Pathfinder Kingmaker playthrough. So what is the earthly point of buying it on release to have it... Not be installed or used? not even sitting on my hard-drive? As and when I finish Kingmaker, I am intending to move on to BT, so that actually might be something I buy when not on sale. But I am not forking out pennies for before then, unless there is actually a reason (i.e. a sale). (And Paradox themselves have also kind of trained me with the last year or so of releases to wait until an expansion comes out when I actually expect to play, and then I will pick them up.)

games are getting more expensive to make, so it's that kind of mentality that does drive companies towards DLC and microtransactions and whatnot - to push prices later.

Which is something most often said by the "triple AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" industry, because they insisted on pushing more and more pointless graphics. (For me, we LONG passed "good enough," and anything beyond "good enough" is completely wasted.)

Look, dude, I run my own business making CAD models. I am very well aware that there comes a point where, if someone isn't willing to pay for it, stuff just doesn't get made; because as I sometimes have to say to my own customers (tacitly), I'm not going to scale such-and-such a model if you aren't prepared to pay me for the time to do it. Which is why I am prepared on occasion to fork out for a kickstarter (but unless it's for something I consider a very high chance of goign trhough - like I did for PoE/PoE2 because it was Obsidian - I'm not going to sink anything into it I'm not prepared to just chuck away). But that? Is now the ONLY time I'm prepared to cough-up for anything up-front. EVERY purchase I make (even, frankly, down to chocolate) is analysed beforehand nowadays. The gaming industry has ITSELF taught me not to impulse buy (thank Bioware for that!), so I won't pre-order anything anymore. (Heck, I even look for non-spoiler-y thoughts on movies usually before going to see them.)

So, there are occasions when I might buy something on release or support a kickstarter to support a small company.

Nintendo and Gamefreak? Absolutely do fracking NOT get that kind of consideration, since they urinate money. (I would say other large gaming companies, but frankly, Paradox is literally the only one of any size I've bought anything from for literal years; save perhaps Witcher 3. Which I bought on sale - like I did with all the prior onces, after all the DLC were done - and that I couldn't have played earlier because I literally did not have the hardware to play it on.)

As was said of Star Wars Battlefront 2, there was no credible way that a new mainline Pokémon game would not have made enough money; you'd have to have actively screwed it up to make it not profitable. They could totally have charged the same amount as they have previously and still not been in ANY danger of not making a profit. (Sidenote, ye GODs, especially since they're charging the same amount for the digital download as the physical copy, and £50 at that from the official UK Nintendo store!)

Hell, the game, despite the apparent backlash, has sold extremely well, hasn't it? So you'll forgive me if I am not remotely concerned about the amount of money in Nintendo's shareholder's bank accounts. (As I'm pretty sure most of the "games are more expensive to make" has not significantly raised the salaries of the actual people on the ground floor making them, even given Nintendo, at least, who can be given the dubious credit that they probably aren't outright abusing their workforce like some other companies, EA, yes I mean you specifically.)

[Saambell]

I very much understand the idea of "wait for a sale" but that leads to amazing games sitting waiting for a sale, even when they are a low price as base. Avoid pre-ordering obviously, that's a very wise choice no one sane would mock. I have Okami HD on my Steam wishlist. Its 25$ CAD. New modern games are 80$ CAD. Okami is a massively popular very well made game. One would think 25$ would be an absolute steal. Yet here I am, with it having been on my wishlist for almost 2 years. Many Steam sales have passed. Still it sits there, cause I'm waiting for it to be like, 10$. Which is an insane price compared to its launch price. Which when I know it would be a game I likely would love. But I'm still waiting, cause I guess I don't feel a 3 year old port of a 14(!) year old game, is worth 3 hours of work. Yes, that's how petty I am. I can make the cost of the game in 3 hours of work. The shortest shift I get would more then pay for the cost of a great well received game. This is the problem Steam and other game sales sites have trained us to do. but this mentality can even backfire on indies or old well received games that everyone knows are good. I got Slime Rancher, Hollow Knight, Steins;Gate, Elite Dangerous, Subnautica all sitting in wishlist waiting for Sales, when these are all super well known well made indies. Yet I refuse to pay full price, even though so many of them are so far below AAA game price, cause "I can wait for a sale". These aren't big publisher games, these are Indies, small teams working on passion projects. And I want them to have less money cause I am a cheap jerk.

Also, its fun seeing a Jim Sterling fan in the wild. The abused A button screams who you watch every monday.

[Fable Wright]

(As I'm pretty sure most of the "games are more expensive to make" has not significantly raised the salaries of the actual people on the ground floor making them, even given Nintendo, at least, who can be given the dubious credit that they probably aren't outright abusing their workforce like some other companies, EA, yes I mean you specifically.)

As a sidenote, from experience at Bethesda Softworks:

Some of their windfall has gone into renovating their cafeteria from a hole in the wall type place to an overly large cutting edge facility and award winning chef (won Iron Chef America and an award for best mid-Atlantic chef), some has gone to hire a lot of new underpaid workers for production to horribly mismanage, and some has gone to the pockets at the top.

I'm as confused about the cafeteria thing as you probably are.

"Games are more expensive to make" means "we are bloating ourselves on new people rather than making structural changes for the better".

Unless you're CD Projekt Red. In which case, they genuinely deserve your money.

[oxybe]

Weird office flexes are a thing.

Did you see the "wow our new crunchyroll office it awesome!" where they turned the entrance into "Japan, as seen by an enthusiastic Westerner".

and many replies are just "Pay your translators livable wages!

[Hunter Noventa]

they might not have directly made a third Pokemon Gun companion game to go with Sword and Shield, but dang that's aggressive pricing for the extra content, especially since we lack the old GTS "I'm looking for X and trading a charmander"

Also, finally gotten around to get Fennel's Munna... 9 years of the GTS.

man.

I'm almost certain that whatever Pokemon Home is, that's where the GTS functionality will be.

As for the pricing, I'm looking at it like old PC expansion packs. You'd pay $50 for say, Diablo 2, then they came out with Lord of Destruction for like, $25. It wasn't a full new game, but it added a new area and gameplay elements. That's the model they're working with here, the only thing that's changed is the pricing.

It just hasn't been done like that in so long that it feels new and alien again.

[Silfir]

I'm almost certain that whatever Pokemon Home is, that's where the GTS functionality will be.

As for the pricing, I'm looking at it like old PC expansion packs. You'd pay $50 for say, Diablo 2, then they came out with Lord of Destruction for like, $25. It wasn't a full new game, but it added a new area and gameplay elements. That's the model they're working with here, the only thing that's changed is the pricing.

It just hasn't been done like that in so long that it feels new and alien again.

It *is* done like that all the time - the practice of making good expansion packs hasn't died out in the least. I'd nominate XCOM 2 - War of the Chosen, personally, as a fairly recent example.

That a good expansion pack like Lord of Destruction exists has no relevance; it doesn't make all expansions packs good. If Pokémon mainline games got the kind of attention to detail, development time, and sheer effort that Blizzard games used to get, nobody would have a problem. Gosh, could you imagine?



Being sold back features that used to be part of the main game in earlier iterations is where people get angry, and probably rightfully so. I seem to remember The Sims 4 released without swimming pools or toddlers and people went ballistic. I don't think those features ended up in paid expansion packs later, and it's probably thanks to that.

[LaZodiac]

It *is* done like that all the time - the practice of making good expansion packs hasn't died out in the least. I'd nominate XCOM 2 - War of the Chosen, personally, as a fairly recent example.

That a good expansion pack like Lord of Destruction exists has no relevance; it doesn't make all expansions packs good. If Pokémon mainline games got the kind of attention to detail, development time, and sheer effort that Blizzard games used to get, nobody would have a problem. Gosh, could you imagine?



Being sold back features that used to be part of the main game in earlier iterations is where people get angry, and probably rightfully so. I seem to remember The Sims 4 released without swimming pools or toddlers and people went ballistic. I don't think those features ended up in paid expansion packs later, and it's probably thanks to that.

What features are we going to be getting in these DLC that used to be part of the main game? Other than Pokemon encounter-able (irrelevant) and Apricorns (which was a bad mechanic back when it was first made).

[Saambell]

Pokemon has basically always held back content to sell to you later. Tutors, battle frontiers, legends, megas, bigger dexs. And in those cases it costed the price of a full game and you lost all your story progress. And before you say "but there were years between them" not when considered across generations. Emerald had the frontier, but they cut it from DP to sell it to you in platinum. Selling old content in a later format is a thing from forever ago.

[Bashhammer]

Why don't more people name their pokemon in raid battles?! I'm tired of throwing out what I think is a creatively named 'mon, and everyone else is just, "Gyrados." "Tyranitar." "Zacian/Zamazenta." Come on people!

During my initial blind run of sword, when the free toxel you get at the nursery evolved into toxtricity, I made a beeline to go change his name to Sid Vicious. Later on, I joined a raid against something that was weak to electric, so I used him. A third person joins the raid, and the individual pulls out their toxtricity, which was the opposite form of mine. Battle starts, turns out this dude had named their's Nikki Sixx. IT WAS AWESOME! Much annihilation of the electrical variety commenced!

Why can't there be more of that?! Bring me your dumb names, pun names, reference names, and dumb punny reference names! It's more fun that way.





....Done with my rant. Back to lurking, have fun, be safe, don't die.

[Hunter Noventa]

It *is* done like that all the time - the practice of making good expansion packs hasn't died out in the least. I'd nominate XCOM 2 - War of the Chosen, personally, as a fairly recent example.

That a good expansion pack like Lord of Destruction exists has no relevance; it doesn't make all expansions packs good. If Pokémon mainline games got the kind of attention to detail, development time, and sheer effort that Blizzard games used to get, nobody would have a problem. Gosh, could you imagine?



Being sold back features that used to be part of the main game in earlier iterations is where people get angry, and probably rightfully so. I seem to remember The Sims 4 released without swimming pools or toddlers and people went ballistic. I don't think those features ended up in paid expansion packs later, and it's probably thanks to that.

I won't argue that the game could use more work. I mean, that other GF game that came out recently (Town or whatever it got called) is apparently pretty terrible, makes you wonder what's going on over there.

And yeah, there are still some actual expansion packs coming out. WOTC is a great example of a good one, it just isn't quite as common as it was until about...Warcraft 3 I want to say. I think digital distribution is partly to blame for that, it's probably a lot more lucrative to sell small DLCs than Expansions. Unless you're Paradox.

I'm reserving full judgement of course, until it actually comes out. But I do know that even if you don't buy the Expansion, you can at least get all the new/returning pokemon via trading.

I still miss Porygon though.

[Silfir]

What features are we going to be getting in these DLC that used to be part of the main game? Other than Pokemon encounter-able (irrelevant) and Apricorns (which was a bad mechanic back when it was first made).

A postgame?

Also: they just cut the dex in half arguing that it's unnecessary for a main game to have access to all the Pokémon like every mainline game before that used to have - only to sell you back a portion as part of the expansion pack. It couldn't be any more cynical and transparent, but here we are. We've got Pokémon fans arguing that having access to actual Pokémon is irrelevant for a Pokémon game, so it's fine.

It's a good point, though - not every feature missing from Sword/Shield is actually going to be fixed with the expansion. I can't find the off-switch for the Exp. Share on the list, for starters.



It's actually impressive to see just how much consumer loyalty the Pokémon franchise has accumulated over the decades - people will defend anything. No wonder they can't resist the temptation to monetize the heck out of it.

[LaZodiac]

A postgame?

Also: they just cut the dex in half arguing that it's unnecessary for a main game to have access to all the Pokémon like every mainline game before that used to have - only to sell you back a portion as part of the expansion pack. It couldn't be any more cynical and transparent, but here we are. We've got Pokémon fans arguing that having access to actual Pokémon is irrelevant for a Pokémon game, so it's fine.

It's a good point, though - not every feature missing from Sword/Shield is actually going to be fixed with the expansion. I can't find the off-switch for the Exp. Share on the list, for starters.



It's actually impressive to see just how much consumer loyalty the Pokémon franchise has accumulated over the decades - people will defend anything. No wonder they can't resist the temptation to monetize the heck out of it.

There is a post game in Sword and Shield.

They're right about the dex though do you know how many people I see lamenting the fact that Landorus is going to be back and will dominate the meta-game again? Garchomp too. Cutting them was a good idea. Returning them in DLC, while unnecessary, was also cool. They didn't have to, and to say that any new pokemon introduced in these DLC is stuff that "should have been in" Sword and Shield seems a little silly. Compare it to Platinum; they added Origin Form Giratina and restructured the wild pokemon to make fire types less barren. How is this any different from the DLC for Sword and Shield, beyond being an entire remake that costs far more money?

It is irrelevant because there are so many pokemon, the fact that some of them are taking a break from showing up is actively a good thing!

They tried something new with the EXP Share. It didn't work. Boo hoo?

I... they aren't monetizing the game at all? What they're doing is less money overall for them. Look, I'm not corporate defender; I'm well aware the multiple game system that they do with Pokemon is exploitative and dumb. But if you're gonna rag on a company, do it for good reasons. TPC treats its employees like trash garbage, be mad about that. Sword and Shield is great for me and not for you and that's Okay.

[DataNinja]

Why don't more people name their pokemon in raid battles?! I'm tired of throwing out what I think is a creatively named 'mon, and everyone else is just, "Gyrados." "Tyranitar." "Zacian/Zamazenta." Come on people!

Do nicknames show online? I thought that they didn't, in case of offensively named things going past the filter. So it only really applies for Trading.

[Saambell]

Its super annoying seeing "they are selling pokemon back to you" cause it shows people don't read because doing so would remove their complaint. Numerous times people here say "the mons can be traded into games with no dlc" and yet there's still people saying that first dumb line. You don't pay for pokemon. You pay for plot and new wild areas. Which yes, means the cost is more unbalanced as the pokemon are not part of the cost. And with home coming out months before the dlc, all your old mons can be transfered without needing the dlc. Even the ones the dlc adds, as the pokemon are done by free update, the dlc just gives a place to catch them in game without trading or transferring.

You are not being sold pokemon. Its stupid that people keep saying that despite it being said so many times.