Sword & Shield **Official news only** DLC Crown Tundra 22nd October

earl

(EVIOLITE COMPATIBLE)
is a Community Contributor
In reference to one of my posts, the graphic did indeed improve. So, I wasn't imagining things. I've found this example in another thread: [Link].
What kind of extreme deadline is this game on/how bad did they think they could make the graphics look with no consequence lol
 
Funny how the mode about building an emotional connection to your mons is being called a waste of time by people with extreme emotional connections to their mons
I think Kyle of Easy Allies said it best:

"Instead of dogs [pokemon] are fish now, yeah I love you Herbie but you'll be dead in like two weeks"

if you make features that encourage attachment to your pokemon people will be upset when you take those pokemon away
and if you'll take those pokemon away shortly you discourage making attachments to begin with; Nintendogs wasn't a yearly release for a reason

in related news, depending on the species "fish" can live up to 30 years, treat your fish with care and don't give one to a child they're delicate pets
 
I feel like we've had a lack of (strong) Bug types confirmed, outside of Golisopod and Vikavolt (and Galvantula IIRC?). I'm hoping for Yanma/Yanmega.

I hope this isn't another gen 6, which sorely lacked new Bug types. Gens 5 and 7 were the best on that front.
I could have sworn seeing Volcarona in an earlier trailer.

EDIT: Checked Serebii. Apparently not.
 

earl

(EVIOLITE COMPATIBLE)
is a Community Contributor
I think Kyle of Easy Allies said it best:

"Instead of dogs [pokemon] are fish now, yeah I love you Herbie but you'll be dead in like two weeks"

if you make features that encourage attachment to your pokemon people will be upset when you take those pokemon away
and if you'll take those pokemon away shortly you discourage making attachments to begin with; Nintendogs wasn't a yearly release for a reason

in related news, depending on the species "fish" can live up to 30 years, treat your fish with care and don't give one to a child they're delicate pets
Half truth, given stuff can still go to home and freely travel between future entries given they're available (would depend on the size of the dexes for these games for whether or not they'd be available, but eventually they will be). Obviously it's not what people want but it's not deleting the mons either.

Regardless the dexit debate has reached a politics-level of entrenchedness so whatever
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
Anyone noticed the wild Machoke they show off Cramorant against has Knock Off despite not learning it via level-up normally?

Knock Off given to more mons naturally to offset the need for move tutors? that could be c00l
 
What kind of extreme deadline is this game on/how bad did they think they could make the graphics look with no consequence lol
I bet it was an optimization thing, the frame rate wasn’t smooth at high-res when they made the first video so they ran it with downscaled textures. Now they’ve had time to get it running better, so they went back to the HD versions.
 

737373elj

Banned deucer.
Honestly, right now my curiosity weights toward the Galar forms selection.

They've revealed a Galar form of a gen 1 and 3 pokemon: assuming say... 10 Galar forms in total, i'll be interested to see which generations they are picked at. We already know they will probably be picking gens that aren't 1 for once, but will it just be gen 3 and 1 pokemon, or are Jotho mons for example going to get some love too?

(Also, still waiting for SirFetch)
Let’s not forget long Meowth, spiky ball Meowth evo, retro day Pikachu, musical
Lapras, Skwovet and Greedunt.

https://sea.ign.com/switch/149948/n...-have-proven-an-old-leak-to-be-accurate?amp=1
 
I'd like to point out that aside from the 50(!!!) already-confirmed Gen 5 Pokémon in the game so far, there's a few others that are extremely likely. Sawk has been confirmed for the game but not Throh; and it's extremely difficult to think we'll see one without the other, so that's another in the ring already. In addition, not only has a symbol resembling Klink been seen on Team Yell's stuff; but in the recent customisation trailer we saw a background that uses a pattern based on Klinklang. So it seems likely this Pokémon will be in the game too, or at least a Galarian Form that uses an extremely similar silhouette.

 
Half truth, given stuff can still go to home and freely travel between future entries given they're available
Funny in light of this
This is the Cherrim family's first appearance in a regional Pokedex since Platinum.
so have fun waiting for your pokemon to be available for like 10 years
considering that Pokemon Home seems like a lousy proposition

Gamefreak is free to alter their product in whatever way they want but people are also free too not buy it if they are not satisfied with those same changes
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
So uhh... Now what? Do you guys think this is it for September news on Sword and Shield, or do you think we'll get more? I know about the anime announcement coming on the 29th, but I'm just referring to game news here.

Reminder: We only got a bit over 2 months to go until release. That sounds like a lot, but considering how sparse the trailers have been this time around...
 
I don't think a short bit in the Nintendo Direct is all we're getting for September. I didn't expect much going in since it was a Nintendo Direct after all, but some more details about character customisation, Camp, and two new Pokemon can't be it. That said, if they're not going to release a demo (for reasons stated to me a few pages back that are valid), I wouldn't mind if they kept news to a minimum.
 
Allow me to be annoying and give a context on why I think that pokemon not having dedicated animations for stuff like Tackle or Double Kick is a reasonable design choice.


By now, you probably have noticed that "in battle" animations have 3 components:
A: The pokemon does a gesture, usually related to the type of attack
B: VFX of the move plays
C: Eventual second VFX plays on the opposing pokemon or itself if it's a self targetted ability

For what regards special moves and some phisical ones, A is usually either the pokemon gesturing to breathe / conjure a projectile / arbitrarly transforming to pretend it's a generically fast ball of energy, stuff like that, B is the actual VFX so the flamethrower, the shadowball, the actual Brave bird animation, and C when present is usually a explosive-ish or similar effect.
By the nature of those moves usually either requiring actual "magicalish" elements like fire, water, thunders, or having the Pokemon assume a very generic form like in the case of Brave Bird or Flare Blitz, those are both relatively simple to create and easier to share between Pokemon, as a generic conjuring animation can be applied to a lot of attacks, and a "transformation" animation is easily applicable to infinite pokemon.

You can notice that expecially as far as point "A" goes, almost all pokemon have usually 1-3 animations at best, which are often as simple as opening its mouth or raising hands/paws in concentration (and shooting fire from its shoulders, I guess :P ) and most of the flashiness and "dramatic effect" of the attack comes from the parts B and C.

However, phisical attacks (expecially non-signature low level ones) offer significantly bigger challenge.
The pokemon needs to actually phisically do the action of kicking, punching, biting, swiping, etc, potentially several times in case of multihits, and those also would need to get the model of the pokemon to actually end in the face of the opponent to really make sense.
Most of the "dramatic" effect of those moves would come from part A: but those both require significantly more animations (remember, some developer foresight is needed in case of bred/Assist/hacked moves to not break the game, have you seen Talonflame use Darkest Lariat? i did, it was hilarious) as well as significantly more time investment to design.

"Scorbunny" would need an animation to Tackle, one to Double Kick, potentially one to use cutting/clawing abilities, one for punches, maybe one for biting too. Replace Scorbunny with basically every single Pokemon in the game.

To this you need to factor the way the combat itself is coded, where aside from very specific moves that have their own "cutscene" (see, Brave Bird), the Pokemon are rarely actually showing at same time during a move animation (to the point in doubles the third and fourth pokemon disappear), and the "attacks" are coded as
Pokemon A animation > B VFX plays > C VFX of hit pokemon plays
Which would not really allow for Pokemon A to actually kick Pokemon B without looking awkard as hell (A would just do a kick in the air standing 2 meters away from the enemy)

You can see yourself how designing phisical animations for battles requires *significant* more effort than special ones.
Combined with the fact special ones are usually way more flashy and most high-end attacks do have flashy animations as well, I can very well see why the developers don't really want to dedicate too much time to animate Tackle, Bite and Double Kick for every single pokemon, when in the time they have done those and re-coded the combat animation flowchart, they could as well have done several other high-level attack animations.

Camp animations, as well, aren't as complex, due to no interaction between Pokemon, so coding Scorbunny doing a idle flip isn't anywhere as complex as coding it to do a kick, because you get to choose *for what pokemon* that animation plays and don't really require to have a backflip animation for every single pokemon.


Now, do I think that with proper time investment, it would be possible to obtain even average quality kicking, punching, biting,... animations for every Pokemon? Absolutely.
Do I think it would improve the gameplay quality? Certainly.
Do I think GameFreaks would be able to successfully execute this? Definitely, with enough money and time investment.

However, I can't say I disapprove or do not understand the choice to stick with simpler and more generic animations for low level phisical attacks, in favour of higher quality high level attacks and more animations elsewhere.

After all, even though the storyline is played partly with lower level attacks, the "big flashy battles" we (and casuals + kids) will be playing and remembering are going to be the ones played against the League, against the big bad guy, or while catching the dreaded legendary, and all those happen at higher levels, with very flashy attacks and giant pokemon breathing fire.

I do not think that the lack of low level phisical attacks animations hinders the game quality in any way, nor ever did before.
They would add to the quality, but they are probably the best thing to sacrifice if it allows for higher quality content in other areas.
 
So uhh... Now what? Do you guys think this is it for September news on Sword and Shield, or do you think we'll get more? I know about the anime announcement coming on the 29th, but I'm just referring to game news here.

Reminder: We only got a bit over 2 months to go until release. That sounds like a lot, but considering how sparse the trailers have been this time around...
I for one was very surprised that we didn't see at least the mid-evos for the starters in the Direct, and not even any Galarian forms. Either they're doing a much nicer job of leaving us surprises for when the games actually come out, or we're going to see some of that stuff very soon.


I'd also like to say that I find Alcremie's multitude of forms extremely clever and interesting as it uses a small amount of actual resources and time to create a grand visual variety on par with previous high-effort attempts like Furfrou and Vivillon. The only real differences are the accessory attached - which doesn't actually move on its own, thus can be rigged as easily as say, a Mii Fighter hat in Smash and doesn't need any extra animation - and the colour scheme. There's only two actual colour layouts as well which the different palettes can be applied to, so they found a really really good way to get a lot out of so little. I'd like to see more of this.

In particular I'd actually like to see it applied to most Pokémon, or at least the starters and some other significant/popular 'mon. A big thing in Pokémon that Game Freak has clearly been trying to do for a while and especially recently is implement some way to make members of a species different in some way; so that if say, you and your friend both caught a Mareep, those two Mareep would not be the same as each other. We've seen these attempts reflected first in IVs, EVs and Natures, and most recently LGPE introduced customisation for the starter Pikavee as well as weight and height ranges.

The first one in particular has been a great source of frustration because, well, it's an extremely boring and tedious way to make your Pokémon different that you'll barely even notice in the main game; it just creates more unnecessary barriers to higher competitive play; at the end of the day just puts across the message "your Pokémon is genetically inferior". Very fun, Game Freak. Great mechanic that adds a lot. Love to have a fun game about collecting animals and being friends and battle partners with them where I then have to get a stupidly realistic genetics simulator forced down my throat.

LGPE was a step forward in that regard, though it still holds the smaller problem that IVs and such had -- outside of the Pikavee-exclusive customisation, the differences added (height and weight ranges) are more or less just something you can only see tucked away in a menu, and only have any significant visuals to them when you first run into them (the red or blue aura) and catch them (a little note saying "very tiny!" or the like). Still adds something, still a positive, still something I'd like to see continue going forward; but it's not very significant or noticeable unfortunately.

Alcremie however represents the potential for a greater array of differences on certain Pokémon, and I really really hope it further represents Game Freak experimenting with the idea and that it shows they want to go ahead with it. How much more interesting would it be if you and your friend who picked the same starter could go "oh hey, your Sobble has a bigger crest! Oh, your Grookey is a darker green than mine!"
It's that sort of thing which would make your partners and adventure feel that much more unique; would add another element of fun when getting together with your friends; and would add more trade incentives. Alcremie is a brilliant example of how to truly implement differences in Pokémon without being too work-intensive, and I really really hope it's simply a precursor to a wider implementation.
 
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Allow me to be annoying and give a context on why I think that pokemon not having dedicated animations for stuff like Tackle or Double Kick is a reasonable design choice.


By now, you probably have noticed that "in battle" animations have 3 components:
A: The pokemon does a gesture, usually related to the type of attack
B: VFX of the move plays
C: Eventual second VFX plays on the opposing pokemon or itself if it's a self targetted ability

For what regards special moves and some phisical ones, A is usually either the pokemon gesturing to breathe / conjure a projectile / arbitrarly transforming to pretend it's a generically fast ball of energy, stuff like that, B is the actual VFX so the flamethrower, the shadowball, the actual Brave bird animation, and C when present is usually a explosive-ish or similar effect.
By the nature of those moves usually either requiring actual "magicalish" elements like fire, water, thunders, or having the Pokemon assume a very generic form like in the case of Brave Bird or Flare Blitz, those are both relatively simple to create and easier to share between Pokemon, as a generic conjuring animation can be applied to a lot of attacks, and a "transformation" animation is easily applicable to infinite pokemon.

You can notice that expecially as far as point "A" goes, almost all pokemon have usually 1-3 animations at best, which are often as simple as opening its mouth or raising hands/paws in concentration (and shooting fire from its shoulders, I guess :P ) and most of the flashiness and "dramatic effect" of the attack comes from the parts B and C.

However, phisical attacks (expecially non-signature low level ones) offer significantly bigger challenge.
The pokemon needs to actually phisically do the action of kicking, punching, biting, swiping, etc, potentially several times in case of multihits, and those also would need to get the model of the pokemon to actually end in the face of the opponent to really make sense.
Most of the "dramatic" effect of those moves would come from part A: but those both require significantly more animations (remember, some developer foresight is needed in case of bred/Assist/hacked moves to not break the game, have you seen Talonflame use Darkest Lariat? i did, it was hilarious) as well as significantly more time investment to design.

"Scorbunny" would need an animation to Tackle, one to Double Kick, potentially one to use cutting/clawing abilities, one for punches, maybe one for biting too. Replace Scorbunny with basically every single Pokemon in the game.

To this you need to factor the way the combat itself is coded, where aside from very specific moves that have their own "cutscene" (see, Brave Bird), the Pokemon are rarely actually showing at same time during a move animation (to the point in doubles the third and fourth pokemon disappear), and the "attacks" are coded as
Pokemon A animation > B VFX plays > C VFX of hit pokemon plays
Which would not really allow for Pokemon A to actually kick Pokemon B without looking awkard as hell (A would just do a kick in the air standing 2 meters away from the enemy)

You can see yourself how designing phisical animations for battles requires *significant* more effort than special ones.
Combined with the fact special ones are usually way more flashy and most high-end attacks do have flashy animations as well, I can very well see why the developers don't really want to dedicate too much time to animate Tackle, Bite and Double Kick for every single pokemon, when in the time they have done those and re-coded the combat animation flowchart, they could as well have done several other high-level attack animations.

Camp animations, as well, aren't as complex, due to no interaction between Pokemon, so coding Scorbunny doing a idle flip isn't anywhere as complex as coding it to do a kick, because you get to choose *for what pokemon* that animation plays and don't really require to have a backflip animation for every single pokemon.


Now, do I think that with proper time investment, it would be possible to obtain even average quality kicking, punching, biting,... animations for every Pokemon? Absolutely.
Do I think it would improve the gameplay quality? Certainly.
Do I think GameFreaks would be able to successfully execute this? Definitely, with enough money and time investment.

However, I can't say I disapprove or do not understand the choice to stick with simpler and more generic animations for low level phisical attacks, in favour of higher quality high level attacks and more animations elsewhere.

After all, even though the storyline is played partly with lower level attacks, the "big flashy battles" we (and casuals + kids) will be playing and remembering are going to be the ones played against the League, against the big bad guy, or while catching the dreaded legendary, and all those happen at higher levels, with very flashy attacks and giant pokemon breathing fire.

I do not think that the lack of low level phisical attacks animations hinders the game quality in any way, nor ever did before.
They would add to the quality, but they are probably the best thing to sacrifice if it allows for higher quality content in other areas.
The "generic" animations worked well so far. We don't really need all these upclose animations, but when we get stuff that looks so bad and lazy that it actually impacts the gamer's immersion, you have a problem.

Scorbunny's "animation" was a hop. A freaking hop.

And not even a real hop, just the model getting moved up then down.

Even PBR's generic "get close to opponent and do generic strike" was excellent and got the point across. A hop doesn't.

There's really no excuse.
 

earl

(EVIOLITE COMPATIBLE)
is a Community Contributor
Funny in light of this

so have fun waiting for your pokemon to be available for like 10 years
considering that Pokemon Home seems like a lousy proposition

Gamefreak is free to alter their product in whatever way they want but people are also free too not buy it if they are not satisfied with those same changes
There’s a difference between me forcing you to buy it and just correcting a (still untrue) appeal to emotion
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
Time to fuckin uhhhh rank all the revealed Pokemon by personal preference

Obstagoon (bipedal evolution haters can suck my dick)
Corviknight
Alcremie (Used to be ok but with the alt flavors reveal I love it now)
Duraludon
Yamper
Galarian Weezing
Polteageist
Grookey
Zacian/Zamazenta (I like them both equally)
Rolycoly
Impidimp
Drednaw (Gigantamax form bumps it up a few spots)
Gossifleur/Eldegoss
Cramorant
Sobble
Galarian Zigzagoon/Linoone (Would definitely be extremely underwhelming were it not for the boy Obstagoon, goes up a few spots from the bottom on its own just for that)
Morpeko (pretty unremarkable but it's better than the average pikaclone)
Wooloo (the hype has worn off, it's ok but i'm waiting on an evolution)
Scorbunny (still not a fan of the noodle limbs)


What's your list?
 
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Time to fuckin uhhhh rank all the revealed Pokemon by personal preference

Obstagoon (bipedal evolution haters can suck my dick)
Corviknight
Alcremie (Used to be ok but with the alt flavors reveal I love it now)
Duraludon
Yamper
Galarian Weezing
Polteageist
Grookey
Zacian/Zamazenta (I like them both equally)
Rolycoly
Impidimp
Drednaw (Gigantamax form bumps it up a few spots)
Gossifleur/Eldegoss
Cramorant
Sobble
Galarian Zigzagoon/Linoone (Would definitely be extremely underwhelming were it not for the boy Obstagoon, goes up a few spots from the bottom on its own just for that)
Morpeko (pretty unremarkable but it's better than the average pikaclone)
Wooloo (the hype has worn off, it's ok but i'm waiting on an evolution)
Scorbunny (still not a fan of the noodle limbs)


What's your list?
Well...

Sobble
Corviknight
Drednaw
Cramorant
Duraludon
------------------------------------------------------------------
Galarian Zigzagoon and Linoone (Hilarious edginess is hilarious)
Morpeko (Same as above for its Hangry form)
Galarian Weezing
Scorbunny (Assuming it evolves into a football player)
Polteageist
Obstagoon
Rolycoly
Impidimp
Grookey
Wooloo
Alcremie
Gossifleur/Eldegoss
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Yamper, Zacian and Zamazenta (To me they don't exist. They shouldn't exist)


But frankly, everything that is not a reptile or a dinosaur (which have exclusivity for the "Best" group) and is not a dog (sole members of the "Worst" group) is very prone to change.
 
My favorites, considering new forms as new Pokémon, in order:

Polteageist
Corviknight
Galarian Weezing
Obstagoon
Alcremie
Scorbunny
Cramorant
Duraludon
Zamazenta
Morpeko
Rolycoly
Drednaw
Grookey
Sobble
Gossifleur
Zacian
Zigzagoon
Linoone
Eldegoss
Yamper
Wooloo

That doesn't mean I didn't like some of the ones that are below. I do like all of them, but these are my favorites.
 

Xucrute

mt tchola
is a Social Media Contributor Alumnus
Time to fuckin uhhhh rank all the revealed Pokemon by personal preference

Obstagoon (bipedal evolution haters can suck my dick)
Corviknight
Alcremie (Used to be ok but with the alt flavors reveal I love it now)
Duraludon
Yamper
Galarian Weezing
Polteageist
Grookey
Zacian/Zamazenta (I like them both equally)
Rolycoly
Impidimp
Drednaw (Gigantamax form bumps it up a few spots)
Gossifleur/Eldegoss
Cramorant
Sobble
Galarian Zigzagoon/Linoone (Would definitely be extremely underwhelming were it not for the boy Obstagoon, goes up a few spots from the bottom on its own just for that)
Morpeko (pretty unremarkable but it's better than the average pikaclone)
Wooloo (the hype has worn off, it's ok but i'm waiting on an evolution)
Scorbunny (still not a fan of the noodle limbs)


What's your list?
Why not..

Corviknight (coolest design so far)
Wooloo (it's so adorable)
Sobble
Zamazenta
Weezing
Dreadnaw (gigantamax is kinda neat so it got some points)
Zacian
Yamper
Polteageist
Rolycoly
Grookey
Duraludon (still think it looks kinda strange but it's not that bad)
G Linoone/ G Zig
Gossifleur/Eldegoss, Scorbunny, Alcremie, Morpeko (they just dont offend me)
Cramorant, Impidimp, Obstagoon/ (Dont even know what to say about these three)
 

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