Topic: Pokemon Sword & Shield

Ah, the good old days of everyone having a Mewtwo on their team. As soon as he was banned everyone had an Alakazam in it's place instead.

It's only the last few gens I feel the meta-game has been more balanced. The likes of Garchomp which had dominated the scene for so long and was classified as uber (on par with Mewtwo) at one point was downgraded because teams had a lot more variety and counters in the game. I would have 3-4 battles with people before I saw someone with the same Pokémon again.

@jump I question if you read my "very long post". I thought I made it very clear. But let me spell it out a little more. By cutting Pokemon to a smaller total number than can build a more balanced roster. Rather than having tons of redundant and outclassed Pokemon that they need to rework the stats and abilities for, they can pick and choose a more reasonable number with a more balanced mix of typing and stats.

@Zuljaras You seem to assume that the "infamous" mention about cut Pokemon for development reason is about lack of time. Well, that certainly is your right to think that. But I don't believe it. I think it's much more likely that that reason was a desire to make a more balanced game without having to rework around 1000 Pokemon and alternate forms and abilities and gimmicks that were never designed to exist in the same game.

That's not balancing, that's cutting. The cut pokes already have stats and abilities already so nothing is being re-worked, which has been the case in previous gens where you transfer old teams onto the new games.

I still don't understand how you think it's now balanced, less Pokes = less strategies and therefore actually less balanced like it was in the early gens which were mirror battles.

@Heavyarms55 Yes we all have our own opinions.

For me GF never cared about balance before will ALL those Pokemon in every game and they magically start caring now?

They just needed one more year to actually finish the game.

@Zuljaras Well, I don't buy that. I think people can and do learn. We'll simply have to agree to disagree. Personally, I don't understand why people like you, who seem to have no respect for Pokemon/Game Freak and who really don't seem to have anything positive to add, stick around. But that's fine, if you enjoy dumping on them and don't like the series, you do you. At least you're rather polite about it, I appreciate that much. There's a decent number of people who are extremely rude about it.

@jump We're not speaking the same language it seems. But that's fine. Have a nice day.

@Heavyarms55 yeah I am not a fan .. I only OWN all of the Pokémon games and some of them even multiple times.

I consider myself a fan of the games. I will not follow a company blindly because I liked its previous products. I am NOT a Mareep or a Wooloo. With all other Pokemon games I was persuaded to buy them because they offered a whole package EVERY damn time for 20+ years.

This time I feel that it is different.

@Zuljaras So, I ask again, why do you stick around? When Disney bought Star Wars and in my very strong opinion, utterly ruined it by abandoning the expanded universe I loved for years, I abandoned it and only revisit the material I like. I leave the people who do like the new Star Wars to enjoy what they enjoy, I don't go to forums for the new Star Wars movies and complain about all the things I don't like about them, trust me, I could. But that doesn't do anything for them and it certainly doesn't make me happy. And Disney sure as all hell doesn't care.

That's why I don't understand all the people, no offense, like yourself, who don't seem to like these games, have little to nothing positive to offer and yet stick around to repeat the same arguments against the games over and over. It's like PokeaimMD said on YouTube the other day talking about these games, if you don't want to play them, you don't like what they've done, don't play them, that's perfectly fine. But those of us who do, want to be able to talk about them and have a good time.

Wouldn't you rather to to a forum for new or existing games that you do like or are looking forward to and have a good time there?

@Heavyarms55 Forums are about expressing opinion about the given theme. Pokémon Sword and Shield is there theme here. It never said about positive or negative opinions.

I get it you don't like negative opinions about things you like but you have to deal with them unfortunately.

I still have hope for the game but I have to wait after their release to see the reviews and watch some videos.

As I said I love Pokémon I just don't think GameFreak gave it all on Sword and Shield.

So by your comment I don't have the right to post in the Pokémon Sword and Shield thread how generic are the new flagship pokemon and how similar they are?

Not every thread will be 100% roses and praise to the games.

So you know you can't back up what you're saying in other words

Let me put it another way. There's now 3 legendary Pokes which aren't even enough for a full team or enough to have a tier of their own, so they are gonna end up in everyone's team now due to how overpowered they are. How this balanced the game?

I think it's because of the problems associated with HD development. We've seen it plenty of times that the jump from standard definition to high definition is very rough, from the early Xbox 360 and PS3 eras (remember games like Sonic 06?) to Nintendo's struggle in the Wii U era all the way to AlphaDream going bankrupt after the Switch completely replaced the 3DS.

@Zuljaras Don't put words in my mouth. I did not say you don't have the right to post. Just that I don't understand why you and others like you persist with talking about a game you seem to have nothing positive to say. And I said that, for me, when I don't like something, I abandon it, rather than going to discussions where people do like it, and dumping on it nonstop.

You claim you still have hope for the game, what hope? What positive thing have you had to say about it? From what I gather, you seem to think Game Freak and the Pokemon company are nothing but a bunch of lazy, greedy incompetents who are delivering a half finished, lazily made game. Where's the hope in that?

We've all heard the complaints about animations, the national dex, and tree textures from a dozen different people a dozen different times or more. Some of us are excited for raid battles, exploring the wild area, a brand new competitive meta game, and HD Pokemon that's not the 11th revisit of Kanto. Some of us really like the new Gallar forms and the totally new Pokemon designs. Some of us want to talk about how the competitive meta game might be, or what we think might be in the story.

But every time I've tried to have those conversations, or seen others doing it, we get all the same people popping back in with the same complaints. National dex, lazy devs, bland animations. Those points are made, and if those issues are deal breakers for you, that's totally fine, why must the rest of us hear about it forevermore?

@jump No, I can back up my words just fine, and have, several times. It's you who just doesn't seem to understand. "Legendary" is a meaningless designation. It's just a label. Typing, stats, moves and abilities are what matters when balancing the strength of Pokemon. Plenty of "legendary" Pokemon in the past have been absolute trash. Articuno is a great example. It's a beautiful Pokemon, sure, but a slow, bulky, flying/ice type with a trash ability and limited move pool means it's borderline useless. On the other hand, Talonflame, the regional bird from XY was so massively overpowered that Game Freak actually had to nerf its ability in subsequent games.

With a smaller selection of Pokemon to work with Game Freak can pick and choose Pokemon that check and counter one another, can have a diversity of types without a bunch of repeated type combinations and can make a healthier more stable game potentially without having to change stats and abilities. Do I think it will be perfect? No. With [spoiler] about 400 Pokemon [spoiler] that's still a large number that will be impossible to balance perfectly. But do I think that it will be a much healthier metagame? Absolutely! Before Pokemon Bank came to Sun and Moon, while it was a bummer that we couldn't use everything, the competitive scene was the best I'd seen in years! Because of limited options people were trying all kinds of more creative things, instead of just going for the same strategies we'd been using the last 3 generations. Again, the best comparison I can make is to that of card games like Magic the Gathering. In MTG's legacy format, nearly every card for the last 26 years is allowed, and it's absolute chaos with broken combos and out of control over powered decks and, despite the enormous number of cards, hundreds never see any play and hundreds more are redundant because they do nearly the same thing. And the top few decks remain dominant. But in the standard format with a much smaller number of cards and a rotating mixture of old and new you have a much more healthy, changing and interesting game. That's exactly what I expect Pokemon to become like.

Furthermore both fan based rules like Smogon, and official Pokemon tournament rules exist. If you can't handle that someone is using a "legendary" play one of those rulesets. I can say that, although as of yet unconfirmed, the first year of Sw/Sh official tournament rules will not allow the legendary Pokemon.

@Heavyarms55 There is no way that everything will be amazing in this thread for you.
I like 50% of the new pokemon from the leak.

I did not say GF are lazy I said that they do not have the capacity to make the transition to the new HD generation. They will never confirm it.

Also if you do not like someone and their opinions you can always hit the ignore button right?

@Zuljaras I generally reserve the ignore button for rude people. I've tried very hard to have a reasonable conversation with you about this but I think at this point we just need to agree to disagree and leave it at that.

I'm talking about those end of game boss legendary, not the one in a game fillers and you have also just proved my point. Talonflame was balanced in the game by not cutting him from play but by adjusting the game.

If the game is so balanced by cutting pokemon why are you suggest the need to cut more pokemon from play by banning them

I'm looking forward to the new Egg Moves feature. If I actually do import anyone (unfortunately, I think all my Pokemon I'd usually import are cut so this is probably meaningless), it'll be nice to be able to give them any new egg moves that may be available since they were first caught.

Wow, I honestly hope my kids don't get as into pokemon as some of you guys lol. It's not that serious

If you're in the US Walmart will have both games for about $10 off on launch day, also the collectors edition guide is about 40% off on Amazon to preorder.

Very serious indeed xD
No, but it tells that people are passionate about pokemon.

@redd214 I'd rather my kid be a fanatic about Pokemon than Call of Duty or Fortnite. I've been on the wagon since I was 6 years old and I would like to think Pokemon has made my life more enjoyable.

@Gravitron I was joking, calm down cowboy lol. But seeing a bunch of adults arguing (not just here) about there only being 400 vs 800 or whatever is just silly.