Board 8 > Pokemon Sword/Shield Discussion Topic - Part 2

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah, it's a chore. Such is grinding Pokemon.
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Now I just see a lot of bad Raid stamps. Literally who even wants to do a Pidove line Raid lol

Living dex done.

The shiny hunting begins.
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I am convinced that hop is the actual protagonist and you cant tell me otherwise

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Murphiroth posted...

Living dex done.

The shiny hunting begins.

What did you trade to get the other game's legendary?

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Fastbreak posted...

I am convinced that hop is the actual protagonist and you cant tell me otherwise

I dunno, Sonia's the one having all the fun exploring the region's lore.
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LordoftheMorons posted...

Murphiroth posted...

Living dex done.

The shiny hunting begins.

What did you trade to get the other game's legendary?

Nothing, I took my girlfriend's once she finished her dex as she doesn't care about a living dex or keeping legendaries.
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If you have a Strawberry can you change into any of the Alcremie strawberry versions at will or do you really need like a million of each item?

swordz9 posted...

Now I just see a lot of bad Raid stamps. Literally who even wants to do a Pidove line Raid lol

I like doing them, giving them a craptactular nickname, and wonder trading them away.
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Can anyone trade me a Mawile and/or Zacian so I can complete my dex? I only need the entries so I can trade them right back. I can trade almost anything in return

I was worried my Ice team would lose to Raihan's weather team, but thanks to subpar AI, I still prevailed.
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Just got it.

First impressions: oh god the britishisms

You don't need to say telly every time

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Holy shit
Stop
This isn't how people talk

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I was on vacation all last week and away from online, but since getting back last night it feels like finding raids has gotten easier. This morning I caught HA Indeedee, Diggersby, and Gardevoir in raids, so I can breed up some babies if anyone wants one of them.

Since I've started finding 5* raids in my own game, but my in-game rotating team is still too weak to really do them, I've just been force feeding Exp candy to various other mons I wasn't using to get them to level 60+ to help get through battles.

Protip to people: don't bring your Poison types into a 5* Gardevoir raid, especially if you see some other idiot already locked themself into a Poison type. It's a miracle we won that. @_@
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I never find any unless I do the searching thing people posted earlier. Even with that I STILL havent been able to get into a single battle with G-max other than Butterfree, Sandaconda, Drednaw and like one time for Centiskorch and Corviknight. I saw like 2-3 others once, but they were all link code locked :/

Wow so far I love the Wild Area

It's so cool to be playing Pokemon and having all those Pokemon just running around, chasing you, and some legitimately being too strong for you. It feels like a... full realisation of Pokemon, or something

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Wild area is neat but somehow ends up feeling a bit small.

It also lags like hell in docked mode.
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The wild area annoyed me until I had "surf". I feel better about it now.
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Being able to seamlessly go from land to surfing is fantastic
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red13n posted...

Wild area is neat but somehow ends up feeling a bit small.

It also lags like hell in docked mode.

Played docked last night and it was fine

We'll see if I get any lag next time

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Yeah, I've never noticed lag much when docked. Unless you mean when online, but that's not docked exclusive.
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Wild Area online is so bad. I swear it's like 5FPS.

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Arent 5* G-max Pokemon to be lv70 with 5 perfect IVs and a full Dynamax level? I just got one that only has 4 perfect, 6 bars for Dynamax level and is lv58

Wooo shiny flygon.
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and I just got my first wild shiny encounter in swsh!

... Elektrike, while I'm wandering around for a Light Ball Pikachu

*edit* and wow my very next pokemon was the Light Ball Pikachu, talk about luck!
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Shiny Obstagoon and shiny Greedent look like they'd be best friends.
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After playing the campaign + dabbling in the postgame, here are my key pros and cons. I'm gonna try to keep these reasonably short - except one point I have to sound off about. Feel free to "Ok boomer" me if that's even a thing still. Minor spoilers below.

THE GOOD:

-They knocked it out of the park with the designs this gen. I can confidently say that this is my favorite batch of new Pokemon since Kanto; it's that good. Even the humans are well-designed, save for Hop being Galarian Hau.

-The soundtrack is great. Turffield has my favorite town song since Ecruteak City in GSC. The Chairman Rose battle music is my favorite boss tune in the series. Those are some highlights, but really, the whole thing sounds damn decent.

-There are some great QoL changes - Corviknight Taxi, no more random battles, rental Pokemon at the Battle Tower, nature mints, etc. I appreciate 'em a lot.

-The Wild Area is a solid addition, even though it's uglier than sin and lags like crazy while online. Mechanically, it's good fun for the most part and I enjoy non-Gmax raids a lot in particular.

-If you just want to "shut up and battle your Pokemon," this game more or less allows you to do so, instead of stopping you every two seconds with "malasadas" and "NEBBY GET IN THE BAG". Between this and the QoL improvements, this really is one of the better campaigns in the series IMO. However, I also see how people who play Pokemon for the story would dislike it.

THE BAD:

-Dexit. Won't beat this dead horse though.

-The graphics. Another dead horse; no elaboration needed. I will say that I'm struggling to think of a single other Nintendo-published Switch game that looks less appealing visually.

-A general lack of ambition/exciting innovation on Game Freak's part. Oh hey, a third dead horse I won't beat!

-The online seems to be getting better, but still, lol

-Whoever was in charge of the catch rates this gen deserves to be sacked with no chance of rehire. This actually isn't a dead horse, and I'm surprised it hasn't pissed off more people.

The fact that they jacked up the catch rates of Pokemon who outlevel yours is obnoxious during the campaign and feels unnecessary (even a bit callous? Like, why). But the big offenders, of course, are the Gigantamax catch rates. Between the absurdly low odds of finding non-event Gmax Pokemon, and the absurdly low odds of catching the fuckers, Gmax hunting - one of the few appealing postgame activities here - is rendered insufferable.

This is carrot-on-a-stick design philosophy at its worst, folks, and I don't blame anyone at all for doing the raid exploit - even though that, too, is a joyless pursuit.

...
All things considered, I think this gen is like a 6.5-7/10. Much like how Gen 6 was a "good enough" game for 3DS owners, this feels good enough if you just want mainline Pokemon on your new-ish device. I mean, barring some insanity, mainline Pokemon will always be fun at least. I don't regret buying it at all, especially since I got a decent deal, but it's no must-have either.
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TheCodeisBosco posted...

-If you just want to "shut up and battle your Pokemon," this game more or less allows you to do so, instead of stopping you every two seconds with "malasadas" and "NEBBY GET IN THE BAG". Between this and the QoL improvements, this really is one of the better campaigns in the series IMO. However, I also see how people who play Pokemon for the story would dislike it.

As annoyed as I am at the lack of story, I will say this is a plus for those that just like to do extra playthroughs using different Pokemon. Like I think there's a good chance I might just create new profiles to try a few mono-type runs or something, and having less disruptions will be nice for those.

TheCodeisBosco posted...

The fact that they jacked up the catch rates of Pokemon who outlevel yours is obnoxious during the campaign and feels unnecessary (even a bit callous? Like, why)

Yes, this is so awful. There's already the limit on catching high level Pokemon without enough gym badges, the added gimped catch rate is so unnecessary. Because of how many Pokemon I cycle through, I've been constantly underleveled every time I enter a new route, and it's been a constant worry that a shiny Pokemon will appear two levels higher than my team and I won't be able to catch it before I run out of balls.
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mnkboy907 posted...

TheCodeisBosco posted...

-If you just want to "shut up and battle your Pokemon," this game more or less allows you to do so, instead of stopping you every two seconds with "malasadas" and "NEBBY GET IN THE BAG". Between this and the QoL improvements, this really is one of the better campaigns in the series IMO. However, I also see how people who play Pokemon for the story would dislike it.

As annoyed as I am at the lack of story, I will say this is a plus for those that just like to do extra playthroughs using different Pokemon. Like I think there's a good chance I might just create new profiles to try a few mono-type runs or something, and having less disruptions will be nice for those.

Agreed! To expand on this, they also did a great job improving the variety of early-game Pokemon. This is true even prior to the Wild Area, though the WA certainly helps a lot too.

I played Pokemon Pearl for the first time earlier this year, and the early-game difference is truly night-and-day.
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Pearl was just awful in general about variety. Did you pick Chimchar? No? I hope you like Rapidash then!
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TheCodeisBosco posted...

Between the absurdly low odds of finding non-event Gmax Pokemon, and the absurdly low odds of catching the fuckers, Gmax hunting - one of the few appealing postgame activities here - is rendered insufferable.

I can sorta understand why they did this, since they want to try and extend the life of interest in raids with events and such, but it sucks for people that just want to catch everything now, yeah.
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Grimlyn posted...

and I just got my first wild shiny encounter in swsh!

... Elektrike, while I'm wandering around for a Light Ball Pikachu

*edit* and wow my very next pokemon was the Light Ball Pikachu, talk about luck!

Oh hey I got a shiny Electrike a while ago too!

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It makes no sense to me why the catch rate would be so abysmal for higher level pokes as well. You can already level your pokemon like 20+ levels with a couple raids early on so it's not like they are trying to stop you from being overpowered/leveled LOL
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My anger at GameFreak is slowly crumbling under the weight of my desire to play Pokemon...

When I eventually cave and buy Sword, I hope one of y'all has a spare Lv. 1 T-tar, Croagunk, and Sobble that I can use
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It'd be pretty amazing if someone had a Level 1 Tyranitar lying around.

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ExThaNemesis posted...

My anger at GameFreak is slowly crumbling under the weight of my desire to play Pokemon...

same thing happened to me and I bought lets go pikachu used. The fact it plays like a unity fan pokemon game renewed my hate toward gamefreak.

we may never get a good pokemon game again
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Its sad that raid scumming is legit the only good way to actually get the G-max raid you want. The RNG in this game is probably the worst in the entire series

After well over a week chasing after gmax corviknight raids, I finally catch one... and it has perfect ivs all around!

So what nature mint should I be getting for it?
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Gigantamax Snorlax raids are now live. Sounds like you have to go to Mystery Gift and check Wild Area news to download the update.
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New rule for myself: don't lock myself into someone else's 5* raid until there's at least a third person. Why on earth is someone gonna immediately start a 5* Gmax Snorlax raid with only two people. Grr.
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I just noticed Hi Jump Kick goes from 130 BP normally to 95 BP Max Knuckle, lolwut.

I've had two 5* Snorlax raids to host so far today, and people be dumb when joining. People stop bringing your glass cannons to a fight like this. The first time, all I got was a guy with a Boltund and yeah no I backed out of that, lol. Second time people brought Barraskewda and Inteleon, and while we did win, it was by the slimmest of margins. You don't need to be spamming Close Combat to chip away at shields and make yourself all the more killable, lol.

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5* G-Max Raids can be beaten with AI, but I wouldnt recommend it. Ive been Raid scumming just to even see some of them because that searching thing wasnt good enough either

Yeah my second one hosted it was me and a Silvally with two AIs (both weak to Earthquake even!), but we got through. I'm trying to catch it in a Nest Ball since the green and brown goes well with the nature aesthetic, so we'll see just how many I have to take down before it sticks, lol.

Oh hey, caught it on the fourth try!

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ExThaNemesis posted...

My anger at GameFreak is slowly crumbling under the weight of my desire to play Pokemon...

When I eventually cave and buy Sword, I hope one of y'all has a spare Lv. 1 T-tar, Croagunk, and Sobble that I can use

This is the horrible thing. We are doomed to know the game is not necessarily up to past standards but Pokemon is such a standout the alternatives don't exist. We have to get our fix.

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well if you all could have just held off for like three months, we could have at least seen them patch in the missing pokemon

as it is they just keep getting rewarded for less and less work

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SantaRPidgey posted...

well if you all could have just held off for like three months, we could have at least seen them patch in the missing pokemon

as it is they just keep getting rewarded for less and less work

if I hold off three months there's literally no way I don't wait for the third version/sequel even if they patch the dexit. So eh.

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Ive changed dates for about 6 months now with no sign of G-max Coalossal and Im 100% positive Im at the right den. This is ridiculous

swordz9 posted...

Ive changed dates for about 6 months now with no sign of G-max Coalossal and Im 100% positive Im at the right den. This is ridiculous

It's Sword exclusive so that may be why

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I have Sword. It took 6.5 months worth of days to finally show up lol

Imagine if you didn't use the exploit XD

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