Board 8 > Pokémon Leak Topic 2: Sound off if you survived the snap.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Mewtwo59 posted...

There's still only going to be around 30-40 things that have a use at the top tier of play. All the dex cut means is that something else gets to dominate instead of Landorus.

There are pokemon that do absolutely nothing that another pokemon can't do better - everything should at least have a niche, even if they aren't all powerhouses. Even something like lumineon has a niche, a function only it can fulfill. Something like basculin doesn't.
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You know, if they were going to remove Return but also make Mega Punch/Kick widely available again, they could've at least made them more worth using. Like boost Kick to at least 85% accuracy and give Punch a 10 point boost to both power and accuracy or something. What is even the point of them the way they are? I hope Body Slam as a TR is at least cheap or a common early raid drop.

I'm looking at Dubwool for my team rotation (love the design even if its stats are just okay), but all the moves I want to give it are TRs. Body Slam, Body Press, Zen Headbutt, Cotton Guard I guess is what I end up with eventually. Cotton Guard boosted Body Presses might be fun at least.
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Brayze_II posted...

Mewtwo59 posted...

There's still only going to be around 30-40 things that have a use at the top tier of play. All the dex cut means is that something else gets to dominate instead of Landorus.

There are pokemon that do absolutely nothing that another pokemon can't do better - everything should at least have a niche, even if they aren't all powerhouses. Even something like lumineon has a niche, a function only it can fulfill. Something like basculin doesn't.

Making hundreds of Pokemon each have a niche seems like it'd be extremely hard, because you're inevitably going to have "X does Y better than Z" when there are so many. The cuts would be even larger in that scenario.
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HashtagSEP posted...

Brayze_II posted...

Mewtwo59 posted...

There's still only going to be around 30-40 things that have a use at the top tier of play. All the dex cut means is that something else gets to dominate instead of Landorus.

There are pokemon that do absolutely nothing that another pokemon can't do better - everything should at least have a niche, even if they aren't all powerhouses. Even something like lumineon has a niche, a function only it can fulfill. Something like basculin doesn't.

Making hundreds of Pokemon each have a niche seems like it'd be extremely hard, because you're inevitably going to have "X does Y better than Z" when there are so many. The cuts would be even larger in that scenario.

Even if they don't succeed, at least they could try. The fact they didn't even give another round of stat boosts to help old Pokemon is really lame. Surely it couldn't take all that much time just to alter some numbers.
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HashtagSEP posted...

Making hundreds of Pokemon each have a niche seems like it'd be extremely hard, because you're inevitably going to have "X does Y better than Z" when there are so many. The cuts would be even larger in that scenario.

Granted there is truth to this, but I think they've made steps in the right direction with changes like the aforementioned restrictions on toxic and knock-off distribution. You might be surprised how many actually do have unique functions! From a design perspective though, I wouldn't at all mind a longer development cycle if it meant more relevant pokemon changes and more attention spent to the meta they're creating. If they want pokemon to be a major e-sport draw, which they do, this is the sort of revision they need.
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XIII_rocks posted...

It would have been hard to upgrade on Theman, but they could at least have not gone so far backwards with it

The Zen Mode form is a huge upgrade over the original Zen Mode form, so at least that's an improvement. It even gets Belly Drum, which can be used at full health to lower its HP to get max Attack and activate Zen Mode.

Oh yeah, here's the Pokedex entries for the Galarian Darmanitan (second one is the Zen Mode entry):

Though it has a gentle disposition, its also very strong. It will quickly freeze the snowball on its head before going for a headbutt.

Darmanitan takes this form when enraged. It wont stop spewing flames until its rage has settled, even if its body starts to melt.
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mnkboy907 posted...

HashtagSEP posted...

Brayze_II posted...

Mewtwo59 posted...

There's still only going to be around 30-40 things that have a use at the top tier of play. All the dex cut means is that something else gets to dominate instead of Landorus.

There are pokemon that do absolutely nothing that another pokemon can't do better - everything should at least have a niche, even if they aren't all powerhouses. Even something like lumineon has a niche, a function only it can fulfill. Something like basculin doesn't.

Making hundreds of Pokemon each have a niche seems like it'd be extremely hard, because you're inevitably going to have "X does Y better than Z" when there are so many. The cuts would be even larger in that scenario.

Even if they don't succeed, at least they could try. The fact they didn't even give another round of stat boosts to help old Pokemon is really lame. Surely it couldn't take all that much time just to alter some numbers.

Probably, but they did seem to make efforts on other fronts, just not touching the Pokemon themselves.

Though how does it work if you transfer a Pokemon from a game pre-stat boost into a game where the stats have changed? I've never tried this.
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Apparently the secret behind Toxtricity's forms is in their nature. According to research on /vp/:

Amped: Hardy, Brave, Adamant, Naughty, Docile, Impish, Lax, Hasty, Jolly, Naive, Rash, Sassy, Quirky.

Low Key: Lonely, Bold, Relaxed, Timid, Serious, Modest, Mild, Quiet, Bashful, Calm, Gentle, Careful

But also neutral natures may be random? There's conflicting info on that it seems.
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Oh right and we finally have a good look at Galarian Farfetch'd.

https://i.imgur.com/nQpcTW3.jpg

And we can't forget Zen Mode Galarian Darmanitan, can we?

https://i.imgur.com/ttk4CWl.jpg
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HashtagSEP posted...

Making hundreds of Pokemon each have a niche seems like it'd be extremely hard, because you're inevitably going to have "X does Y better than Z" when there are so many. The cuts would be even larger in that scenario.

not every Pokmon is going to be competitive, but it would be nice if they all at least felt distinct. Obviously at this point theres a ton of Pokmon and there are some archetypes that have been repeated in different gens, but with the smaller curated dex every choice should count.

the specific choice that frustrates me is the inclusion of both Machamp and Conkeldurr. Conkeldurr is just Gen Vs replacement for Machamp! They have the same stat total and really similar distribution and moves and it just seems redundant to have both... and then they give Machamp a Gigantimax so he like extra outshadows Conkeldurr ! Either dont include them both or toss Conkeldurr something new that makes him stand out a bit more in comparison.

(now Im not a total expert so I fully expect someone to tell me how theyre actually very different in the serious meta game or something)

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this is my formal petition to give Conkeldurr an ability like Dhelmises that gives him STAB for Rock attacks

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Conkeldurr has Defog now for some reason, so it can still offer something different from Machamp.

MoogleKupo141 posted...

this is my formal petition to give Conkeldurr an ability like Dhelmises that gives him STAB for Rock attacks

Only if Timburr gets one for Grass and Gurdurr gets Iron Worker (or whatever Dhelmise's ability is called). Gotta stay consistent.
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Im comfortable with that.

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guts is way better than steelworker

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MoogleKupo141 posted...

the specific choice that frustrates me is the inclusion of both Machamp and Conkeldurr. Conkeldurr is just Gen Vs replacement for Machamp! They have the same stat total and really similar distribution and moves and it just seems redundant to have both... and then they give Machamp a Gigantimax so he like extra outshadows Conkeldurr ! Either dont include them both or toss Conkeldurr something new that makes him stand out a bit more in comparison.

This is a really bad example (for the point that you were trying to make) because Conkeldurr and Machamp have never played the same in any generation that they were in.

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SantaRPidgey posted...

It's almost like it's not a reboot and instead is just your average unchanged pokemon game sans a lot of pokemon

That's the thing: if it was just your average unchanged Pokmon game, all the Pokmon would at least be in the game's data, and they wouldn't have cut something like 200 moves or removed location-based evolutions. Extraneous junk persisting has been Game Freak's MO for the past ...how many generations now? To change so suddenly and starkly indicates a clear difference in intent, but since it's Game Freak we're talking about, the results simply don't line up with the intent.

-hotdogturtle-- posted...

This is a really bad example (for the point that you were trying to make) because Conkeldurr and Machamp have never played the same in any generation that they were in.

Nah, wallbreaking with 4 attacks and Guts was both Conkeldurr and Machamp's favored strategy in Gen 7.
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Are people seriously complaining about them removing location evolutions now too, after constantly hating them for the past 8+ games since they were added? This seems like something that people would be celebrating them finally removing.

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I actually liked the Ice/Moss Rocks

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I'm glad we got rid of location evolutions because this means we can finally get Glaceon before the end of the game. (INB4 they don't give you an Ice Stone until really late)

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They should make all the tedious evolutions much simpler tbh. Fuck weird locations and quirks just let me evolve everything with a stone or by leveling up

there's a dude on reddit that has ripped all the models and is comparing them to the sun/moon models, apparently most are identical down to the exact number of tris

strangely some are identical but gamefreak removed tris, so they did go over the imported models and tried to remove redundant/unnecessary tris to cut back on potential lag, but on paper it looks really bad that the console pokemon game has "less" detailed models with less tris than the handheld game it got its models from

the real problem tho is that they very clearly ripped these models from sun/moon but claimed in this polgyon article ( https://www.polygon.com/pokemon/2019/7/13/20693069/pokemon-sword-shield-pokedex-limited-game-freak-statement-nintendo-switch ) that they were making them from scratch which was a contributor to dexit

which then leads us to wonder why the fuck the game looks so bad if they were importing the pokemon? and why don't we have all the pokemon if they weren't making new models? what the fuck happened
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I'm a little confused as to why GameFreak felt the need to lie for months about not re-using the models and animations.

It's like a kid who will inevitably get caught by the parents, but until then just keeps up the lie and rides it out because they don't know any better.

Very strange behavior.
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Only 1 vote for Grookey during the first 5 minutes of today's poll:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/7780-

And Rowlet currently in second place right now.
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https://clips.twitch.tv/TameZanyMagpieSpicyBoy

How many Pokeyz died for this animation?
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Peridiam posted...

I'm a little confused as to why GameFreak felt the need to lie for months about not re-using the models and animations.

It's like a kid who will inevitably get caught by the parents, but until then just keeps up the lie and rides it out because they don't know any better.

Very strange behavior.

To be fair, the translation of the interview that was first claimed to be where they said they redid all the models is now gone and only reported second hand, and a Google translation of the actual interview doesn't seem to have anywhere where it actually says that. Obviously Google translate isn't perfect by any means, but there's not even anywhere that seems like it's even kinda saying it.

So the "They said they had to redo the models" bit may have just been rumor.
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StealThisSheen posted...

Peridiam posted...

I'm a little confused as to why GameFreak felt the need to lie for months about not re-using the models and animations.

It's like a kid who will inevitably get caught by the parents, but until then just keeps up the lie and rides it out because they don't know any better.

Very strange behavior.

To be fair, the translation of the interview that was first claimed to be where they said they redid all the models is now gone and only reported second hand, and a Google translation of the actual interview doesn't seem to have anywhere where it actually says that. Obviously Google translate isn't perfect by any means, but there's not even anywhere close.

So the "They said they had to redo the models" bit may have just been rumor.

To be fair though, there is a question of "if they didn't have to redo the models, why not just bring everyone back"

there's two good reasons not to bring every Pokemon back:

1) Development resources maintaining a roster of over 1000 Pokemon is getting costly (this is a good reason)

2) We want to have a game that has a more trimmed down roster of Pokemon to keep things from getting complicated on the player's end (this isn't a bad reason, but most players don't want this, so it's kind of a bad reason)

1 can still be true even if they aren't spending time redoing the models, but it's weird to me that you wouldn't just aggressively future proof everything at this point so that you don't have to worry about people getting upset in the future

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

https://clips.twitch.tv/TameZanyMagpieSpicyBoy

How many Pokeyz died for this animation?

just imagine how much worse it would look if they had to spend time putting Weedle into the game

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Well, you can only future proof things so much. Even with future proofed models, there's a good bit more to it than just copy and pasting them in, especially when going to a new system that does things differently. I'd imagine the true reason is they just don't see cost effectiveness in doing that for over 1000 Pokemon and wanted to nip it now. It sucks, but they're a business just like anyone else.
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StealThisSheen posted...

Well, you can only future proof things so much. Even with future proofed models, there's a good bit more to it than just copy and pasting them in, especially when going to a new system that does things differently. I'd imagine the true reason is they just don't see cost effectiveness in doing that for over 1000 Pokemon and wanted to nip it now. It sucks, but they're a business just like anyone else.

A business that I think might have just made a really big PR error

I think you can sell "we can't bring every pokemon back but we're going to do something really high-effort" and I think you can sell "we can bring every pokemon back, but please understand that there's only so much we can do polish-wise" but then they kinda fucked up both things and people noticed. fucking up doesn't always prove cost effective!

Maybe, maybe not.

I personally don't see sales being impacted nearly as much as people seem to think.
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Reviews are supposed to be out tomorrow.

Boy the outrage if it scores well will sure be something.
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I just saw some maybe credible leak claiming that the lack of Pokmon and questionable animation quality is due to something going wrong with transporting assets to the new engine causing them to have to cut corners to get the game out in time. Allegedly theyll actually bring all the Pokmon back for the next gen and claim its because they listened to their fans.

i of course have no actual idea if this is true, but I can buy it... the decision to leave stuff out when they already had all these assets to reuse is just so dang weird otherwise

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mnkboy907 posted...

Reviews are supposed to be out tomorrow.

Boy the outrage if it scores well will sure be something.

It will be interesting to see how many of the reviews actually mention the Pokedex controversy and the lack of a National Dex.
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Welp over the last three days, Twitter trends have gone from #ThankYouGameFreak to #GameFreakLied. Bonus points to the UK for having a small #IStandWithSerebii going.

LusterSoldier posted...

mnkboy907 posted...

Reviews are supposed to be out tomorrow.

Boy the outrage if it scores well will sure be something.

It will be interesting to see how many of the reviews actually mention the Pokedex controversy and the lack of a National Dex.

The dumb thing about this is the game would be no different on Day 1 regardless of if Pokemon were cut or not. The extra 490 Pokemon still wouldn't be available for at least another month or two anyway.
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Like I said before, this whole thing retroactively makes gens 6 and 7 worse, because we had to put up with all that lag in battles from the futureproofed models for nothing. If they were going to cut Pokemon anyway, I'd rather they'd have just used worse models for the 3DS games so they wouldn't run like molasses.

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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

https://clips.twitch.tv/TameZanyMagpieSpicyBoy

How many Pokeyz died for this animation?

oh my god

please don't tell me this is the average time to watch a pokemon animation. The bad hop is bad sure, but the time it takes to go through two kicks is incredible.
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StealThisSheen posted...

Maybe, maybe not.

I personally don't see sales being impacted nearly as much as people seem to think.

Yeah in the best case scenario, this might sell worse than Fire Emblem, making it still a huge financial success.

like I said, this is something that really mostly hurts the hardcore fans, and there simply aren't enough of us to make a dent in the sales numbers to change anything.
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SantaRPidgey posted...

StealThisSheen posted...

Maybe, maybe not.

I personally don't see sales being impacted nearly as much as people seem to think.

Yeah in the best case scenario, this might sell worse than Fire Emblem, making it still a huge financial success.

like I said, this is something that really mostly hurts the hardcore fans, and there simply aren't enough of us to make a dent in the sales numbers to change anything.

I would caution however that kids these days have the internet and look up videos on youtube quite a lot, so the opinions of the hardcore base CAN trickle down to the casual masses; I have an 11-year-old brother and I've seen this happen quite a bit, not in this particular instance for him (he still plans to purchase SwSh) but he is impressionable in general

I'm not sure it'll make that large of a dent in the game's sales and it'll probably meet its projections, however putting out subpar products and taking hits to your reputation DOES eventually come back to haunt you... usually. Word of mouth is pretty powerful these days

Paratroopa1 posted...

I would caution however that kids these days have the internet and look up videos on youtube quite a lot, so the opinions of the hardcore base CAN trickle down to the casual masses; I have an 11-year-old brother and I've seen this happen quite a bit, not in this particular instance for him (he still plans to purchase SwSh) but he is impressionable in general

Oh yeah I guess there's a sliver of hope there. Like the way all zoomers know sonic forces is bad but no one actually played it.

That said influencers of pokemon content are pretty saccharine. I don't see a lot of famous pokemon youtubes critique the games.
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All I know about pokemon content on youtube is that it's fucking terrible, he ended up seeing some fake shit on youtube about the final starter evos (this was before we got credible leaks of what they looked like) and he thought it was real

Also just a great deal of parroting hot takes that clearly didn't come from his head

Right now, there's a Pokemon anime marathon on the "Twitch Presents" twitch channel. They are only showing the Gen 1 anime, though.

https://player.twitch.tv/?channel=twitchpresents

I'm guessing this is because of the upcoming release of Sword/Shield.
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Less than 6 hours left until Sword/Shield is officially out in some parts of the world.
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And now the game is already out in New Zealand, Australia, and Japan. More places will get it later today (mainly Europe).

Anyways, let's get this topic to 500 posts.
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Posting just to get to 500 is silly
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Like really now why would anyone just start posting meaninglessly just to fill up a topic?
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Panthera posted...

Like really now why would anyone just start posting meaninglessly just to fill up a topic?

It's less than 10 posts away from reaching 500 at this point, so I don't see any harm in trying to fill it up. If this topic was at like 480 posts instead, it would have been a much bigger stretch to make a case to get this to 500 posts.
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It's such a strange thing to just start double posting and shit when a topic is nearly full
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I mean come on now, why would anyone do that?
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Play Pokemon Sword/Shield
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