Topic: Pokemon Sword & Shield

@Heavyarms55 The models are the same as gen 6, gen 7, and Pokemon GO. So they don't have to make them anymore. And even if they had to, Creatures does the 3D modelling, not Game Freak.

@Octane Are they really though? I mean stylistically that seems plausible but I don't think we can know for sure yet.

It makes me wonder then if, by the mention of balancing, Game Freak is significantly reworking the stats system. If that isn't the case and the models really are all gen 6 and gen 7 models, then what Masuda said would be a load of nonsense and they would have absolutely no reason to not have every Pokemon from every previous generation. If stats do indeed work the same as gen 7, then balancing for competitive play could be done be simply having online multiplayer rule sets.

The have already done similar things. I believe in XY, ORAS and SM the first year of VGC for those games only allowed the regional Pokedexes.

@Heavyarms55 Yeah, it's just a different shader. And the 3DS models were rendered in a lower resolution. Anyway, that was their entire idea behind it; future proof the models so they don't have to redo them every generation.

I don't think stats are being reworked. The last time they've done that (on a big scale) is gen 2 with the special split.

@Octane If that is the case, then it really makes no sense to me at all. If they have the assets and they aren't changing the stats, I don't see a good reason not to include them all. If, they are not changing stat systems around and they already have the models I don't know what the issue is. For competitive play they already have the solution: just implementing custom rules for tournament play. Heck it wouldn't even be hard to all the creation of fan made ban lists for online play.

From what you are telling me it makes absolutely no sense not to have them all. Unless there is some complex feature that they haven't revealed yet. Which strikes me as unlikely, but possible. The was mention of making Pokemon more unique and expressive on the Switch. But I don't know why they would mention that and not show off what they are talking about - at least a teaser or something!

Perhaps it is possible that GF will see the fan reaction and change their minds, or plan to implement them all later in updates or DLC expansions.

Gamefreak probably just ran out of time. Pokémon has to keep up with a very strict schedule I would imagine, since it’s not just a video game but an anime, a trading card game, etc. They can’t delay it so they just decided to do it this way

@Heavyarms55 I mean, the walking/running animations even exist in the code for Sun and Moon; they've done more than they needed to.

Maybe it's less work because they don't have to go back and review the movesets, add new egg moves, TM compatibility, etc. If they can just forget about a good amount of them, it saves them a little time I guess. Or maybe it is to not overwhelm new players.

To be fair, I don't really mind it. I've always said that they can't keep this going forever. I want new Pokemon more than anything, cause they're the most exciting part of new games, but they're getting close to a 1000 of the little buggers at this point. The only thing I'm not a fan of is how some make it into nearly every game, whereas other don't. I'm sick of Lucario at this point

@Yorumi Yeah, you're 100% right on that one. I don't think the solution is boosting less viable Pokemon however. Nerf the good ones. I know it's unpopular, but that makes just as much sense.

Most water types learn Ice Beam, and considering Ice is a defensive wreck, there's no point going with an ice type when most water types do everything better. I don't think it makes sense for all the tropical water types to learn ice beam, get rid of those ice moves and give people a reason to use ice Pokemon. Another example is Toxic. Why can every single Pokemon learn that move? Did they all grow venom glands? If it was exclusive to most poison types and a handful of other Pokemon that made sense, it would give people a reason to use poison types over something else.

Basically, the smaller their move pools are, the less overlap there is between Pokemon, allowing for more unique movepool + ability combos. It's just silly if you look at the list of moves that any random Pokemon can learn. Most of them don't even make sense!

And Zangoose still can't learn Cut...

Glaceon also just has the displeasure of suffering from Gamefreaks complete confusion as to what they want Ice Types to be. They continuously try to make them either glass cannons or defensive walls, the latter in the case of Glaceon, but it’s lackluster if not terrible at both.

Ice type really is just the worst typing in the game atm. Even with something as crazy strong (on paper) as Aurora Veil (which they purposefully gave best to Alolan Ninetalea) the typing is pretty bad overall.

@Octane I mean it's not a deal breaker for me, but it is a bummer. I was so pumped for the game that I was gonna buy the special edition double pack. But now that excitement has been tempered down quite a lot and I'm just gonna pick up a normal copy.

Personally I don't buy the "overwhelm new players" argument at all. I just flat out don't accept it as valid. Collecting them all has always been apart of Pokemon and never before has it been easier to get information on them. And the egg move/TM compatibility thing just sounds remarkably lazy. Something a rom hacker could do in an afternoon. For a company like GF it is probably one of the easiest things to program and decide upon.

I am a little salty but overall I can live with it and am still looking forward to the games... just not as much as I was. Regardless of anything else, this announcement should have been in the Pokemon Direct, not an afterthought in the Treehouse. It was very misleading. We all saw the Direct and the previous videos showing off Pokemon from across the eras, anyone would assume a full National Pokedex to be compatible. Certainly not obtainable in-game, but compatible via Bank/Home. But they didn't tell us until the Treehouse event, which between the Pokemon Direct, E3 and the Treehouse, I suspect Treehouse to easily be the least watched segment.

Gen 1 really was wild with what moves Pokémon could be taught. Example: Surf for Rhydon. They’ve mostly made it more logical as to what moves Pokémon can learn now, but they definitely just rolled with their original movesets.

Gamefreak has never taken away a Pokémon’s ability to learn certain moves iirc, but they’ve broken trends in the last two gens with changing BSTs and even Abilities entirely

@Heavyarms55 Yeah, I'm just making stuff to be honest, but that's all I can think of. It's weird for sure, but I personally don't really mind it.

@-Green- Godzilla can swim. That's probably the reason why Nidoqueen, Nidoking, Dragonite, Kangaskhan and Rhydon can learn Surf. And even Tyrannitar in gen 2. They're all sorta Kaiju-like in appearance.

Some stuff is just weird though. Passimian can learn Electroweb, but it can't learn Barrage. Swirlix can learn Flamethrower, and Cryogonal can learn Poison Jab... Why? lol

They have been nerfing Pokemon specifically since Gen 6. Every game since has had Base Stat changes to Pokemon. For instance in Sun and Moon, Masquerain has it's stats increased, some had ability changes, some have had new moves added. They do do it, but its not noted.

Masquerain for instance, went from a speed stat of 60 to 80, and Sp Atk went from 80 to 100.

Leech Life as a move became one of the strongest Bug moves overnight.

For reference, the Pokemon that had their base stats changed in Sun and Moon are

Alakazam, Arbok, Ariados, Beartic, Chimecho, Corsola, Crustle, Cryogonal, Delcatty, Dodrio, Dugtrio, Electrode, Exeggutor, Farfetch'd, Illumise, Lunatone, Magcargo, Mantine, Masquerain, Noctowl, Pelipper, Qwilfish, Solrock, Swellow, Volbeat and Woobat.

In XY,

Alakazam, Ampharos, Azumarill, Beautifly, Beedrill, Bellossom, Butterfree, Clefable, Exploud, Gigalith, Golem, Jumpluff, Krookodile, Leavanny, Nidoking, Nidoqueen, Pidgeot, Poliwrath, Raichu, Roserade, Scolipede, Seismitoad, Staraptor, Stoutland, Unfezant, Victreebel, Vileplume and Wigglytuff.

@Yorumi

I don't think it's as much about making all Pokemon viable as much as preventing the game from powercreeping to the point that even Skarmory becomes UU. You are right that GF doesn't care about making every pokemon viable, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to make ANY pokemon viable without giving them pokesteroids.

On top of that, regardless of whether it was intended, it will be nice to see pokemon like Espeon, which are solid but unfortunately outclassed, have a chance to shine.

Also, your statement about Flareon and Glaceon is just a general problem Game Freak has had with Fire and Ice types. They prefer to make Fire type's best two stats Attack and Special Attack, meaning speed tends to get screwed, and they often have wasted stat points in an unused attack. Fun fact, there is only one non-damaging Fire type move in Will-o-Wisp. They LOVE defensive Ice types, and Lord knows why.

@Knuckles-Fajita That's not nerfing, that's boosting lol. Masquerain at a total base stat of 454 with the bug and flying type is still a joke unfortunately. Not sure what their reasoning was, but a 20 boost in speed and special isn't going to change that.

@Octane It was simply showing that yes, they have been doing things to alter Pokemon stats and such, just not been shouting it from the rooftops.

And some of those changes are widely impactful. The nerf to Dark Void means the move never shows up now. Prankster got nerfed by buffing Dark Types. The nerf to Burn damage has reduced the usage of Scald. The buffs Azumarill and Clefable got made them prominent forces in the metagame in Gen 6, as both a hard hitting physical beast, and a wall respectively.

You may not think it, and sure, some, like Masquerain (That was just the first that came to mind) don't make much impact. But on the whole, a new Gen leans to a whole new wave of stat and move changes.

Gamefreak really also just wants to push the newer Pokemon. They want them to be used, to be meta so as mentioned above, they push powercreep that way as well. My favorite example is say, Alolan Ninetales. There's a reason she's the only Ice-type who can learn Aurora Veil and have Snow Warning. Meanwhile, something like Aurorus whose English name and design is based on the very the Auroras does not learn it at all.

A post on Tumblr reminded me that Pokemon HOME is a one-way transfer from older games and bank so if you move a Pokemon from say Moon over to HOME that isn't in the Galar Pokedex it is stuck in HOME until a post SwSh game releases that the Pokemon is coded into assuming they don't patch it later. It will be stuck in limbo, yay.

Bank already does this.

You can't "go back and relive X/Y" with your old pokemon if you've used them in gen 7.

Up to this point, every generational transfer has been one way only. (except from gen 1 to gen 2).

As a side note, the living dex I keep on bank is still gen 6 compatible, simply because there is no point in transfering them to gen 7.