Poll of the Day > Bought Pokémon Sword today *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

This is my first "real" Pokmon game, as I've only played Pokemon GO before this.

i just registered for the gym championship.

a lot more fun and engaging than I imagined, but I feel like they do a poor job of explaining what's going on. Like I understand that strong and rare Pokmon are in the wild area, but are all Pokmon available there? How does dynomaxing work? Should I be spending time in camps? should I be making curry? Do I need to be online and trade if I want every Pokmon? Is it even possible to have every Pokmon?

idk I just feel like I'm missing out on a lot of the things they're introducing, especially since I don't have friends who play who I can fight wild area baddies with, or trade with.


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MrMelodramatic posted...

Should I be spending time in camps? should I be making curry

only as a shortcut to evolve certain pokemon who evolve by friendship otherwise complete waste of time

you can get every pokemon, especially if you just go to the pokemon board and ask for a trade, and yes eventually you can get whatever pokemon you want

you can also join strangers online to do dynamax raids, dont have to be with your actual buddies

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FatalAccident posted...

eventually you can get whatever pokemon you want

so all 900ish pokes can be found/traded/evolved? That's good. I'll probably make that my goal after finishing the game. Do you need to buy the DLC for this?

you can also join strangers online to do dynamax raids, dont have to be with your actual buddies

Oh nice!

thanks!

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FatalAccident posted...

pokemon board and ask for a trade

MrMelodramatic posted...

so all 900ish pokes can be found/traded/evolved? That's good. I'll probably make that my goal after finishing the game. Do you need to buy the DLC for this?

Stress on "trade", because a lot of Pokemon are behind a DLC paywall.

You will not personally have access to them unless you buy the DLC.

Also, if you don't have the DLC, you will be unlikely to have anything of value to people who do.

So basically, you will be asking someone to do you a favor and give you the DLC Pokemon for free.

That is not to say that won't happen, there are bored people who will do it for you. But getting all the Pokemon this way will take a while, if that's you're goal.

The game aggressively holds your hand, and for anything else you can google to easily find the results for.
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Play FireRed.

ForteEXE3850 posted...

The game aggressively holds your hand, and for anything else you can google to easily find the results for.

It definitely railroads you lmao. The first two hours hours was following Rival and pressing A

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Enjoy! I'll be honest, gen 8 isn't the greatest place to start, but for everything that game gets wrong, it does get something else right.

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MrMelodramatic posted...

so all 900ish pokes can be found/traded/evolved? That's good. I'll probably make that my goal after finishing the game. Do you need to buy the DLC for this?

Nah my bad, IIRC the base game of SwSh gives you about 400? Pokes. Then you got the DLCs that give you access to another couple hundred so by the time crown tundra and isle of armour are out youve got access to 2/3 of the entire roster of Pokemon from gen 1-8. You dont need to buy all the DLC, anyone can trade you all available Pokemon if all you have is the base game

Also dynamax is available in online battles or gym battles or other power spots across the map eg in the wild area dens. Your poke gets big for 3 turns and whatever its offensive moves are become maxed ie any fire move becomes max flare any flying move becomes max airstream. Max moves have 100% accuracy and typically base power of 120-130 depending on the power of the actual move. Also they all have additional effects eg raise your attack 1 stage or lower opponents speed 1 stage.

any status moves you have turn into max guard regardless of type, which is just a dynamax version of protect

aside from that theres not much else to know bro just breeze through the game its easy af but its fun

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Pokemon Home has the ability to transfer pokemon from GO, and then you could move them into Sword.

Need to pay if you want it to hold more than 30 pokemon at once though, so be certain anything you transfer from GO can be moved over to Sword.
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The real thing they don't explain well enough is how stages of buffs/debuffs work.

It's best to think of everything with no buffs/debuffs being at 2/2 power. Going up a stage increases the top number (so to 3/2), going down a stage increases the bottom number (so to 2/3). +6 is as many stages as you can go up or down aka to 8/2 (so 4x boost) or 2/8 (so only 25% of the normal value). Accuracy and evasion are 3/3 instead and evasion is just applied to the enemies accuracy stat stage capping at 9/3 or 3/9.

The value of setting up and getting higher stages of your stats is massive in any battles that are closer although of course for all the single player stuff you can just overlevel and oneshot everything regardless cause pokemon is super easy.

Also something useful they don't mention at all I'm pretty sure is that level directly affects the damage formula. A level 100 pokemon with the exact same stats as a level 1 pokemon will do WAY more damage. IIRC the level multiplier is ((level/5)+2).

You can win just about anything by using 1 pokemon to weaken the AIs first pokemon, then switching in a pokemon that can boost one of it's attack stats, power it up to +6 and then oneshot all the enemies pokemon. You can use this to win battles even if your pokemon are WAY weaker.

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Got my first gym badge. Are all the pre-fight missions going to be that silly lmao

also dynamax Pokmon fights are just regular fights but bigger? I thought there were supposed to be extra effects, multiple-move turns, and other stuff?

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Dynamax is basically a beneficial status condition. Buffs your stats a lot and turns your moves into the max version which alter the area.

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Dynamax lasts 3 turns, and every type has a special max move that in addition to dealing tons of damage all do things like change stats dramatically, set a terrain effect or set a weather effect.

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You can't solo Dynamax'd Pokemon (without a Dynamax maybe?), can you?

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I've done a few without dynamaxing, but I've only been able to do 1-star raids. I'm guessing my Pokmon aren't a high enough level to take on stronger guys yet

also, fuck off with being too high level to catch. I took down a level 50 dude with a few 20-somethings, but was never able to even throw a ball at it.

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MrMelodramatic posted...

also, fuck off with being too high level to catch. I took down a level 50 dude with a few 20-somethings, but was never able to even throw a ball at it.

Mostly to stop you from just catching stuff too early. You can catch more in that zone as you get badges.

You can do all those random dynamax battles over and over though, and eventually you will be sitting on a fuckton of EXP boosters (and Rare Candies IIRC) and can boost your own pokemon to levels considered insane for that point of the game. Serious, my Shield save has L40 - 50 Pokemon when I finally entered the town where you start the challenge.

Still couldn't catch anything that level of course. :P
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Yeah just keep doing the story, youll be able to catch high level Pokmon soon. Also the DLC kinda breaks the game because the raid dungeons let you catch level 60-65 Pokmon as soon as you go there.

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Okay I got the eight badges, beat Bede, and won against the leaders again. Rose interrupted my fight with Leon, and now Hop and I are on our way to the forest.

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This ending section has taken a lot longer than I was expecting. I thought it would go final gym => championship fight => sword/shield/darkest day conclusion

but it was more like final gym => fight goth girl => fight hop => fight Bede => fight three more trainers => fight the same guy all over town three times => like four fights in an elevator => one more fight at the top of the elevator => ???????????? => probably ends with champion fight

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There's a surprising amount of postgame content

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i wouldnt personally call it postgame content considering its where you get the cover legendary

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TheSlinja posted...

i wouldnt personally call it postgame content considering its where you get the cover legendary

maaaan its postgame

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Also the postgame includes all the battle tower stuff, wild area stuff, DLC if you get it, etc. It actually has a pretty fun postgame. I've put well over 100 hours into it after beating it. Also Sword/Shield, especially with the DLC, it's sooooo easy to make your dream team. It has a LOT of tools to help you make perfect Pokemon with ease.

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Also! @MrMelodramatic If you can find means to do so, play HeartGold or SoulSilver. They are considered the best Pokemon games, and they really deserve that title. They're remakes of Gold and Silver, but just better in every single way. And they're just fun to sit down and play. They're imo a waaaay better casual playthrough game then Sword/Shield.

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Woah I don't think thats an uncontested claim. I think 3rd gen is top tier with 2nd remakes right behind it.

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Emerald is great too. Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire are also good, just not as good. But the Delta Episode rewards, and the post game are great.

Also I love LeafGreen to death.

And it's rumored there are going to be Diamond/Pearl remakes next year, that should be pretty good.

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papercup posted...

Also! @ MrMelodramatic If you can find means to do so, play HeartGold or SoulSilver. They are considered the best Pokemon games, and they really deserve that title. They're remakes of Gold and Silver, but just better in every single way. And they're just fun to sit down and play. They're imo a waaaay better casual playthrough game then Sword/Shield.

They're really not. They're neither considered the best, nor do they deserve the title. They also play slow as molasses and are a major step down in that regard.

If you're going to play a remake, stick with FRLG. That was an actual improvement, since it fixed a lot of the bugs in RB

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see, zues hates them so you know they are the best

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I say the must plays are:
FireRed/LeafGreen
Emerald
HeartGold/SoulSilver
Platinum
Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire

And if you want, play Black/White, X/Y though those are... eh....
If you absolutely must play a gen 7 game, don't play Sun/Moon. Play Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon. Literally the same game, but with more.

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If I can catch every Pokmon in this game, excluding Shield exclusives, I'll buy the first DLC

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papercup posted...

Also! @MrMelodramatic If you can find means to do so, play HeartGold or SoulSilver. They are considered the best Pokemon games, and they really deserve that title. They're remakes of Gold and Silver, but just better in every single way. And they're just fun to sit down and play. They're imo a waaaay better casual playthrough game then Sword/Shield.

This

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I heard that experience sharing wasnt a thing until Gen 6 or 7. That sounds tedious as hell and is a hard no for me

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MrMelodramatic posted...

I heard that experience sharing wasnt a thing until Gen 6 or 7. That sounds tedious as hell and is a hard no for me

That's true, but, the balance was different then. You don't train up an entire team to fight, you train 3 Pokemon that you'll use for the whole game, then the other 3 are HM slaves that just help you get around the world.

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My girlfriend and I have put in a cumulative hundred hours to the game, and are still missing 150+ Pokmon.

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TheSlinja posted...

see, zues hates them so you know they are the best

Because anybody takes that post seriously, note that it's a Slinja post.

MrMelodramatic posted...

I heard that experience sharing wasnt a thing until Gen 6 or 7. That sounds tedious as hell and is a hard no for me

There was an exp share before that, it just worked differently. And yeah, training a team could be tedious.

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Should say "before," not "because." Slinja's shitposting is rubbing off on me! =x

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My solution to these things is to not worry about it and just play the game and explore / try out things on my own. You tend to figure out a lot of stuff anyway on your own. (And in this case the game actually rations out tips over the course of your journey, and occasionally explains mechanics in further detail than before, so, there's that too.)

I would find it disgraceful to even consider the notion that I as a gamer with 25+ years experience (although the amount of experience shouldn't even really matter either) would need to ask someone if I'm playing a certain game right. At least in the case of a single player game.