There's A New Exploit In Pokémon Sword And Shield That's Ruining Competitive Play

The competitive community is already full of cheaters so this level of cheating was to be expected. Doesn't surprise me people would find a way to negate a loss if they already go so far as to hack in a perfect team.

The loser with tantrum.
Cannot accept their lost.
We need to build our sportsmanship to embrace whatever situation we will get.
Just like this Pokemon Sword/Shield anime Opening theme lyrics.

Win or Lose, doesn't matter.

Wait, people are cheating in pokemon? For realz?

This is awful! I bloody hate people who do this! Bad sportmanship in the extreme. The digital equivalent of flipping the table when you lose a hand in poker! Only you're safely behind an internet connection hundreds or thousands of kilometers away so there's no risk!

I hope that GF can fix it ASAP!

I could care less if you hack a full team of shiny Pokemon with perfect stats - have fun, that has no impact on anyone else. (and I know mine are legit regardless!) But this form of cheating blatantly ruins ladder, one of the best parts of the game!

People still play Pokémon when Animal Crossing is out? jkjk

@Heavyarms55
It's sad to see those cheaters are peoples with very High Ego.
Too Proud for them to lose.
Too Cool for them to obey the rules.
Too Fragile their mentality to be fair.

Sure, it definitely sucks. But how sucky would a ‘fix’ be? Because it would have to broadly apply to any disconnect, right? Both people lose points, or both people gain points. Either way means an even worse outcome.

@HobbitGamer I'm no programmer but couldn't they set it up in a way that if the disconnect is due to a console turning off, that that account is flagged as a loser? It would suck for the off chance that someone playing has their battery die, but it's not like the console doesn't repeated warn you of low battery.

Did you guys forget that this was technically possible prior to Gen 7? The only difference is that sore losers would just turn off their DS/3DS before the last turn was over, but the result was the same.

A big reason why I stopped matching up with randoms online. When I do battle against someone, it's usually someone that I met on Discord or GameFAQs, or someone I know in real life.

I've had this happen a few times in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate too. It's a known issue in the Smash community as well, but thankfully not a lot of players do it.

@burninmylight No, but I'm sure a lot of us repressed the memory once it appeared it couldn't be done in gen 8. That was one of the best parts of the new game. It's a big part of why I got into it so much. Laddering was fun and DC's were rare to nonexistent for the first few months the game came out. I fought up to Master Ball twice now (which reminds me I need to collect my March rewards today). But now I'm not interested in playing if people are going to just DC whenever they lose and deny the points.

Still haven't went back to this since I've beaten it. Worst and most forgettable game in the series, by far.

@Jayvir

Doesn't surprise me people would find a way to negate a loss if they already go so far as to hack in a perfect team.

Its extremely difficult to get a legit perfect team. Especially during later seasons when legendaries are used, and there's no way to breed them for 1/31x6 + 1/16 nature + hidden power type on top of time consuming leveling + EV training + BP/watt grinding for tutor moves.

Thankfully it became easier in swsh with bottle caps and nature mints so that we don't have to cheat as much, but ever since the first vgc players always generated their mons (theres no point not to anyway, back in the old days of gens 3-5 it took months to even get the necessary breeding mons to pass IVs to even begin going for 6 IV pokemon, and there was no destiny knot to guarantee 5 IVs would pass down, no nature mints, and in gen 5 + theres still no way to guarantee hidden abilities if you do hatch something perfect and its not even HA.) There are players that actually didn't even finish their teams in time before the last season of a generation back in gen 4, just because they couldn't find the right stuff to breed with appropriate stats and it took too long to prepare a 6 pokemon team in a meta that changed every week.

If action replays and pokegen didn't exist, there probably wouldn't even be a VGC for gens 4 and 5 to fund for vgc gen 6.

@Araquanid It's never been easier to build a competitive team. I can build a full team of six from scratch in a few hours time. No problem. And already have a good Ditto and access to BP and bottle caps, I can build a full team in minutes.

But even then, hacking in a perfect team really isn't an issue. Because they're still limited to the possible online. The days of Wonder Guard Spiritomb and Pikachu with 999 in every stat are gone. And so I don't care if people want to risk their account with a jailbroken Switch. Because that only affects them.

But there is no point to playing a competitive ladder if people can just turn the game off to negate a loss. This isn't even limited to Pokemon, why play any ranked vs. mode if people can just cheat to ignore a loss?

@fadedcolors Best title in the series since the DS era. Hands down. Best competitive meta perhaps ever, amazing music, great new Pokemon, crazy easy team building. Raid battles immensely fun and rewarding. The Mewtwo raid weekend was one of the funnest coop game experiences I've had in years. Single player drops 90% of the hand holding from gens 6 and 7, and delivers a nice, short and sweet experience. No more Zubats every 2 steps! DLC adding on to your existing save file, instead of demanding you buy a revised copy of the game for full price with only 15% new content.

But hey, if you still hate it. That's fine. I don't understand why you even clicked on the article though.

MK11 is terrible for it. Trash talk you then disconnect right before you destroy them. Some real high lvl people too. Its sad they cant take a loss on the chin and whilst you still get the win you dont get the xp for it. Something really needs to be done to penalise this like have tiers or something where continued disconnection eventually gets you sent to the bottom of the barrel with the rest of the bottom feeders.

@Heavyarms55

I think you misunderstood what topic i was targetting. I wasn't saying "in defense of whats going on rn" I'm saying "in defense of why we needed to hack teams in the first place". Whats going on online with this exploit does need fixed. This isn't fair or realistic gameplay, its just flawed.

Hackmons like wondertomb were a problem in gens 4-5, but there never was a ranked ladder for it to ruin anything and by the time we got ranked ladders that stuff got filtered out from even being used online.

getting legit teams in swsh is super easy yes, but swsh didn't come out before RSE, DPP, BW, XY, where we didnt have bottle caps or nature mints for legendaries when VGC's biggest events are the ones with legendaries. Imagine getting perfect primals with 1/32 IV x 6 x 1/16 nature, doing that for both of them (as in restarting and playing through both versions, and being stuck at a specific point in the game unable to do anything until you get them) and then finally being able to make your team. I agree making competitive teams is easier in swsh, its actually more effort to buy a hacked switch, but previous gens its really silly to look at somebody and say "bring a non-genned/save editted team of legendaries."

@Araquanid You're right I did misunderstand and I apologize. And I agree - in past games, especially before they changed the Destiny knot and added bottle caps and mints, building a competitive team was outrageously time consuming. I remember the first competitive Pokemon I made with a perfect IV in attack and speed and for the era, that was an accomplishment! During those times hacking really was needed for anyone unable or unwilling to devote hundreds of hours to a single team... And I just refused to play the formats with all the mascot legendaries being allowed. It was beyond unreasonable to ask us to get so many of those Pokemon together with competitive stats and natures.

And although I do agree that it's not nearly as big of a problem in games without a ranked ladder, it was still a dick move to DC, rather than to forfeit or play out the battle back in the old days.

i cant speak for legendaries, but for making a perfect team within the game all 6 ivs and the nature you wanted, as long as you had the corresponding ditto with a few, and the pokemon you wanted with a few, it could be done legitamley in pokemon X and Y using a daycare save glitch, i dont remember the specifics but i read the way to do it on an old gaming forum no longer running. without an action replay. legit just using the game itself and doing stuff a certain way. mighta been diamond and pearl. i honestly dont remember any more, but hatching perfect pokemon couldnt have been easier, it was a dam legitimate perfect pokemon factory lol..

I like to play online with Pokemon I like and have raised but always run into the same 6-8 Pokemon mixed into everyone's team that can easily be found on Google for top-tier i.e. Corsola, Dracovish, Hydreigon, Dragapult. It totally ruins the fun imo, as they may as well have a separate league only for those top tier pokemon so the rest of us can battle with the other 350+ Pokemon in the game. I've had people with these teams quit on me mid-match when I was able to drop one or two of their Pokemon, but have always received a Win for it. Not sure why people care so much about their records, really have not had a great time with the online battles in this game. I love the core content & think it's still one of the best games out there despite the poor matchmaking system online.

One of the many reasons I don't play any multiplayer; toxic communities. Even reading here people defending glitches and hacks to get the "perfect team". At that point why even bother? If you don't put the work in you've already lost. I'd rather battle with hard work and dedication than glitches and hacks, but then again I'm an honorable person. As for the topic at hand however, GF isn't like NextLevelGames, they'll have a patch out soon enough to fix it, unlike Luigi's Mansion 3 where 5 months in and thousands still can't play because of no inverted y axis....

i never thought that was a exploit.. it happened to me in some ranked battles but i did not recognize that i did not gain points.

hope they will fix that.....

Competitive play has been ruined since the games went online, everyone cheats. Everyone "gens" their pokemon.

@Heavyarms55 Maybe! Since there’s an alert for low battery. Maybe it could watch packet drop or something.

@Anti-Matter it's a bit more Go then Sword & Shield imo

@Heavyarms55 It's personal opinion sure, but this is NOT the best competitive format under any circumstance.

Could we also patch out save-scumming at Dynamax dens? Talk about killing the spirit of the Wild Area.

@Octorok385 From what I have read, that particular exploit can't be patched because of the way the Switch handles sleep mode and dates. They'd have to change the Switch OS and lock you into a synchronized date.

@HobbitGamer Well, I mean there's the factor with the connection to the server, if one player turns their console off, the other player would still be connected, right? So the player that's still online should get the win and the other player should be flagged to get a loss next time they connect.

@Heavyarms55 Alls I'm saying is that if your console clock has changed in the last 24 hours, zero raids should spawn. Is that doable? Maybe. If only Nintendo had a hand in both the OS and the software in some form...

@Octorok385 That's a possibility I suppose.

Personally I'm not too bothered by the exploit. Most people I have seen have stopped doing it while online - and the only part that bothered me was joining a raid only to have it cancelled right away.

@Heavyarms55 I wouldn't care at all except that every currency in the game except for BP is tied directly to raid battles. Exp Candy, Dynamax Candy, TRs, valuable sell items, Watts, not to mention Pokemon themselves. All tied up in a system that people just scum. Really kills the spirit of the game for me.

@Octorok385 Are you having problems getting that? Maybe we're not thinking of the same scumming. What issue are you talking about?

WeCutPastPokemonToImproveBalance.txt

The fact that rental teams are allowed, already kinda ruined competitive play for me. This is just the icing on the cake.

@Heavyarms55 Sorry just saw this. I'm talking about the exploit where you toss in a wishing piece and quit if it isn't the beam you want, and then you can load up to check the Pokemon, and if it isn't what you want you can tap Home and change your clock settings. It lets you fish for the best Pokemon while collecting tons of watts, and better Pokemon mean better rewards after the battle.

@Octorok385 Ehh that exploit doesn't bother me at all, so long as they do it offline until they actually intend to play the raid.