Topic: Pokemon Sword & Shield

@Dogorilla : There was never a complete edition of Smash on Wii U or 3DS, sadly, otherwise I would definitely have bought such a release. False memories can be a funny thing. I've had similar dreams about products that don't exist over the years.

My biggest gripe with the torrent of DLC nowadays is that we are scarcely given the option to buy a complete package later on. It seems that we are only ever given such options (at least where Nintendo is concerned) with ports of last-gen games, but even so, they have added DLC to ports too (such as Pokkén Tournament and Captain Toad).

I'm ok with the DLC approach as long as its reasonable to have DLC in the first place.

The obvious red flags, is the idea of them adding pokemon to the game via DLC when they should've been a part of the whole package, and the fact they sold us a rushed $60 game with half the base content a pokemon game normally has. At least that part is free, you don't have to buy the DLC as long as somebody trades them to you or you transfer them via home. There's no dex expansion so you don't have to care about catching all of them, just trading for the ones you need. I guess we can make a pass here as not apart of the price.

Adding new areas however, it depends how many they add but we're getting an additional wild area (idk if the crown tundra has one, just looks like a legendary hunt but there's definitely routes to encounter other pokemon), probably a couple routes, new locations for legendaries like the regis, an underground to find past legendaries (finding past legendaries was typically restricted to the remake/final installment of the generation), so if the surface area is at least half as big as galar when combining DLC, it ain't too shabby.

The addition of move tutors, apricot balls, and more clothing is pretty huge. I don't care for fashion as much but that's a lot of extra content in the clothing, and the move tutors alone are the main reason competitive players even buy sequels, so its almost like they get to have move tutors without having to buy the same game and play through it.

The DLC adds 2 stories as well, and tbh the closest thing we ever had to a post game story was the short lived stark mountain and delta episode, which wasn't all that exciting and more of a time length filler. Having 2 additional stories I suppose makes up for the fact we only got a half baked one in SwSh (it was for the game's box legendaries..) so even the argue of 'a post game should've been there', i think this doesn't necessarily make you pay for a post game, it just makes you pay to add additional ones.

IMO DLC >>>>> new game, would've rather bought USUM DLC than played through SM twice.

The thing the bugs me most is why gamefreak kept this secret, they knew how upset they made everybody when they said they wouldn't expand the dex and everything would be in retirement home, and even said there's no plans for DLC late in development when the DLC started development (it takes them 6 months to design a pokemon, the new legendaries you cannot say they just heard feedback on release and instantly developed) , they could've legitmately saved face if they announced this sooner.

It's kind of a bummer to say, but welcome to most games since... I don't know, like 2010? Maybe even earlier?

Shipping with 50-75% of content only to add it as DLC later ranging in cost from 20 dollars upwards.

I hope this kind of stuff starts going away and soon. It seems we're finally getting away from loot boxes, but that's been helped by a lot of legal battles. Players need to start standing up on these DLC packs. I wouldn't mind something more in line with expansion packs for PC games back in the day. Most of those were like half the cost of the base game but many (if not all) added insane amounts of game, and it was usually clear nothing was withheld from the original release.

@Araquanid Most Pokemon games get Pokemon post launch via Mystery Gift (some old and some new) so it's not unrealistic that the expansion legendaries may be or may have been at some point Mystery Gifts, hence the expansion pass could have been a post launch decision.

Alternatively if it was a pre-launch decision, announcing the DLC pre-launch wouldn't have calmed the situation down as from what I can gather it seems the topic has moved to "locking Pokemon behind DLC" even though Pokemon aren't actually locked behind the DLC.

Anyone have a mawile and a zacian they could lend me to finish the pokedex?

I don't need to keep them, I just want the dex entries to finish the dex.

I have basically everything else if you need something specific in return.

@Eel traded my Zacian to some random guy in a discord and never got it back. Recommend asking someone you know IRL.

Literally had to start another game to get another one

@Eel Is Zacian the sword one? If so, I could do it, but I don't have a lot of time until later this week. I could also breed a Mawile if you want one.

I haven't posted here in a while. Hi again!

I can breed pretty much everything that's breedable, and I've recently started to use specific balls on mons I want to hunt shinies for (Dream Ball HA Hatenna and Premier Ball Milcery and HA Snom so far).

@Octane yes that would be great, I can wait.

Ok, a kind mysterious benefactor read this and traded me the Pokemon already, thank you!

@Gravitron hah yes, hate when that happens. Unfortunately the only person I know irl with Sword is my brother, who kinda just stopped playing right before the end, and hasn't continued since November.

I do trust many of the people here though.

@Manah I plan to use the special pokeballs on breeding Pokemon as well. I'm glad the expansion will add apricorns.

@Grumblevolcano you're probably right about the shift.

I think overall the biggest backlash is the fact that pokemon were cut and, to our assumption, it was meant to be a permanent thing for SwSh, but mostly it was their reasoning for doing it.

What caused the biggest upset was how GF made excuses that were completely false. Keep in mind throughout the whole reveal-release window, GF has said they cut the dex for:

-didn't have the time (whatever fine.)
-better animations (none of the old ones changed at all, and moves without animations still have no animations.)
-better graphics (hardly as one could argue these games look on-par or worse than battle revolution.)
-remaking the models from scratch (completely false)
-a curry dex nobody asked for (i still haven't used this feature a single time.. literally)

So it seems pretty clear to players that they ruined the game for the sake of making it better and failed miserably at that.

What really hurt was when they denied they would ever patch pokemon in SwSh (not just 'no plans', they've flat out claim no once or twice.), and they worded home is for pokemon that you **might** be able to bring into future games.

If they said they cut pokemon to focus on the game itself and didn't have the time to start off with all of them, and planned on patching them in cycles with only an initial pool to start off with, I'm pretty sure everybody's reaction wouldn't be as devastated (assumingly they include the fact that the pokemon get patched in for free seperate from the DLC). GF just did not handle the backlash at all, and I doubt the DLC was the result of the feedback given how long it takes to make content like this. Me for instance, i'm actually ok with the concept of 'releasing in waves' but I had all the resources to assume GF was just killing the franchise.

@Araquanid And thank you for summing up how a series of poor communication decisions caused one of the biggest fan backlashes of recent memory. Stating things that were either flat out lies or basically untrue multiple times in a single release cycle was not their best move.

@Araquanid

The addition of move tutors, apricot balls, and more clothing is pretty huge. I don't care for fashion as much but that's a lot of extra content in the clothing, and the move tutors alone are the main reason competitive players even buy sequels, so its almost like they get to have move tutors without having to buy the same game and play through it.

Honestly this annoys me the most of anything else announced. Move tutors were a bonus feature in Crystal because I imagine they weren’t invented yet. But after that they became one of the most anticonsumer practices in the series, with the feature being withheld from initial games in every successive generation.

Apricorns have also been a standard series feature. Adding these to the game is straight up making people pay for something that should be free IMO.

Apricorns have never been a "standard feature". So I'm certainly glad to see them come back.

Outside of any gen 2 game or their remakes, the apricorns balls have always been annoyingly rare or nonexistent.

@iKhan The reason move tutors don't appear in the launch version is that GF always (tries to) use them as a way to help fix issues in the meta. If they existed in the base game, they could just make the TMs/TRs (which we did get way more of this time). The tutor's original purpose was to allow for additional TMs to be added without restricting trading TMs.

So yeah, while the implementation of them is never perfect, without tutors they couldn't adjust issues in the meta so... That's why they exist.

Huh yeah, I never thought of them as mid gen TMs, but that does make sense.

Why add tutors in the first batch of games, when you could just make those moves TMs.

Another newbie question: i dropped off 2 Pokemon at that one center that watches them(route 5). They said something about them laying eggs, does that mean the Pokemon will breed a hybrid of the 2 Pokemon I dropped off. I think i read someone here mentioning you can breed them and I was wondering if this was it. 2nd question: how long does it normally take? My daughter and i are excited to see what it looks like.

It is always the same species as the mother, with a few exceptions, mainly: breeding with Ditto always results in an egg from the other species, never Ditto.

How long it takes for an egg to generate depends on how much the Pokémon like each other, some species may not even try and go near other species, so keep an eye on what the caretaker says. If she says they won’t play with each other, then they will never have eggs.

As for hatching the eggs, you need to walk with them in your party, each species has a set amount of steps before the egg will hatch. If you have a Pokémon with the flame body, magma armor, or steam engine abilities in your party, that amount is halved.

@Eel wow that's interesting. Thanks for the knowledge. Guess i should've checked if they were male and female before I took off lol.

And how do you know if they like eachother?

@NintendoByNature It'll say anything other than 'they prefer to play with other Pokemon'.

In general, they'll like each other if and only if they're in the same 'egg group' as it's called. So they need to be in the similar in some way. For example, most reptiles are in the 'Monster' egg group and can breed, while plants are generally in the 'Grass' group. Pokemon can be in up to two egg groups.

If you're curious, you can google any pokemon's egg group(s) and they'll come up, otherwise just toss them both in and see what the breeder says.

@link3710 very neat. I'm kinda kicking myself for missing out on the series my whole life. And i feel kind of silly not knowing stuff most people know. But either way im enjoying it. Later tonight we might head back to that center and swap the Pokemon or see what i dropped off, I honestly can't remember.