One thing that would have been really cool in the Ultra games is if the places where you fought Legendary Pokemon had the background where they are from instead of just the psychedelic backgrounds that they have.
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"A Message for Pokémon Video Game Fans" - by Junichi Masuda (It's Nothing) [See Staff Post for Discussion Guidelines]
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Is even worse on Twitter than in here. I was called entitled there, just because I want more than just the bare minimum. And in this game case, even losing features there was always in the past games.
I swear, some of this companies could slap some people in the face, and they would still defend them.
They have not bothered with any kind of story since black/white, that was actually compelling and dared to go deeper into the pokemon lore and society as a whole.
And cutscenes, seriously? i'm pretty sure you've played games with actual dialogue and cutscenes and not the weak afterthought ones that pokemon games have.
Working hard on something doesn't mean the end product is actually good.
I'm sure people worked hard on the Game of Thrones finale. The animators were all working hard on that awful Sonic movie design. I'm sure devs at Bethesda worked hard on Fallout 76. People/companies aren't absolved from criticism just because they did their best.
What Game Freak is doing isn't good enough, regardless of whether or not they're actually lazy.
I'm sure people worked hard on the Game of Thrones finale. The animators were all working hard on that awful Sonic movie design. I'm sure devs at Bethesda worked hard on Fallout 76. People/companies aren't absolved from criticism just because they did their best.
What Game Freak is doing isn't good enough, regardless of whether or not they're actually lazy.
Imagine any other director saying stuff like that. This shit gets a pass only because it's pokemon. It's incredible.
Pokemon had better online functionality in XY than most Nintendo games which they just made really awkward in Sun and Moon.
I don't really expect much of anything from Nintendo regarding online though...
Mario Tennis Aces -Poor progression, limited doubles queue, connection problems, Busted Matchmaking
Super Mario Party - Can only play a few minigames, no traditional mode that people play MP for.
Mario Maker 2 - busted netcode, queue against people on wi-fi and no way to play with friends until the blowback from fans
Smash 5 - busted netcode, queue against people on wi-fi, cant play squad strike online, friendly fire forced to off for co-op, GSP ranking etc etc
Yeah SM made it a bit more convoluted than XY. SWSH looks like it's back to PSS level of good though
Wingull flies by gliding. Wingull adjusts its altitude and takes off by flapping its wings
Anime:
That's the thing though. People are treating it like it is the case, that all attacks are like Double Kick, that all textures are like the compressed far away tree in the rain with the colours dulled and the texture blurred for the rain effect and so forth
Yes. Wingull flaps its wings to change altitude and take off. This doesn't change the fact it glides and seldom flaps its wings in flightPeople trying to justify that Wingull overworld animation are shameless. Even ORAS did a better job on the 3DS:
God I swear these arguments are circular
"These animations suck. Look at Wingull"
"Actually, Wingull is canonically set to fly without flapping its wings much, only flapping them to change altitude and to take off. the other birds in SWSH are flapping their wings as we can see with Corviknight, Braviary and more so this is an intentional decision"
"Yeah but look at it flapping its wings in these animations in other formats where it's changing altitude or taking off"
My only statement is that they should have put Wingull higher up like Butterfree and Corviknight rather than low to the ground. It was a poor choice to show off.
I don't agree with the decision to begin with but it was pretty clear GF was so far in development they couldn't backtrack such decision.
I'm not going to jump in and weigh in on the actual Pokédex controversy here, partially because nobody is going to be swayed by anything that anybody else says in this thread on that topic, but what I do want to say is this:
What the hell kind of internal politics led to Masuda being assigned the duty of making this statement?
Pokémon Company handles all communications regarding these titles, so was this their marketing and PR realizing they had to say something and so they stuck it with Masuda because he's a well-known name or because he delivered the news in the first place, despite him being a Producer on the game? Like...he was certainly involved in the Pokédex decision but I imagine he had his hands full directing Let's Go up until last fall AND producing the pre-production and early production on Sword/Shield simultaneously. He's not an auteur.
Or...did Masuda go to the Pokémon Company and say that he WANTED to put out this statement. I doubt that's the case considering it's such a nothing statement and reads very heavily like "oh shit we gotta put SOMETHING out there"
...
Alright, I'll say one thing:
Game Freak is a mid-size developer of about 140 people, not all of whom work on the Pokémon Projects. There's a small support group over at Creatures, Inc. (who largely manages merchandise, side games, and runs the TCG,) but development culture in Japan isn't as open to external contractors as one might expect - especially Nintendo and Nintendo-related companies. By the time they made the decision I guarantee someone threw out the possibility of hiring up to not have to cut. It's not as if game developers are actively out to spite players - and in the process of deciding anything that they know fans will dislike, other ideas are usually thrown out. This is just complete speculation on my part, but it's possible that from when they realized they couldn't ship in November with the current staff and every monster, hiring would have been inefficient with scouting, hiring, training, and ramping up the workload. Though that's saying nothing about future updates, yadda yadda this thread has gone around in enough circles to know what the other talking points are. Just wanted to throw in my two cents as a producer
What the hell kind of internal politics led to Masuda being assigned the duty of making this statement?
Pokémon Company handles all communications regarding these titles, so was this their marketing and PR realizing they had to say something and so they stuck it with Masuda because he's a well-known name or because he delivered the news in the first place, despite him being a Producer on the game? Like...he was certainly involved in the Pokédex decision but I imagine he had his hands full directing Let's Go up until last fall AND producing the pre-production and early production on Sword/Shield simultaneously. He's not an auteur.
Or...did Masuda go to the Pokémon Company and say that he WANTED to put out this statement. I doubt that's the case considering it's such a nothing statement and reads very heavily like "oh shit we gotta put SOMETHING out there"
...
Alright, I'll say one thing:
Game Freak is a mid-size developer of about 140 people, not all of whom work on the Pokémon Projects. There's a small support group over at Creatures, Inc. (who largely manages merchandise, side games, and runs the TCG,) but development culture in Japan isn't as open to external contractors as one might expect - especially Nintendo and Nintendo-related companies. By the time they made the decision I guarantee someone threw out the possibility of hiring up to not have to cut. It's not as if game developers are actively out to spite players - and in the process of deciding anything that they know fans will dislike, other ideas are usually thrown out. This is just complete speculation on my part, but it's possible that from when they realized they couldn't ship in November with the current staff and every monster, hiring would have been inefficient with scouting, hiring, training, and ramping up the workload. Though that's saying nothing about future updates, yadda yadda this thread has gone around in enough circles to know what the other talking points are. Just wanted to throw in my two cents as a producer
Also, the fact that it's running in small squares with stiff animations is pretty weird. Pokémon in the oveworld look so off.
Just FYI, Creatures Inc. also deal with much of the 3D modelling and animations :)
However, Masuda was probably picked because he's the face of the franchise and is the main game franchise Director
Yeah they need to add a turning animation for the Pokémon. Then it'd not look so stilted
That said, that'd add to the list. If say 500 Pokémon are in the game, that's another 500 animations to do.
This is the sort of thing I've been talking about. One small feature addition becomes a mammoth task due to the sheer number of Pokémon that exist
I'm pretty sure that'd be feasible for a game selling 15m+ units. Also, they can always future-proof models and animation. Wasn't this the excuse for high-poly models in previous games?
Yeah doing turning animations would definitely futureproof and yeah the models are futureproofed but animations still getting added for a simple feature is a big workload. Eventually you'll get diminishing returns.
Like I said earlier. 1006 Pokémon/forms presently in the game (not counting texture recolours). Add 10 animations to it for a game and that's 10,006 new animations that need conceptualising, capturing, modelling, rigging, testing, fixing etc. and they're not necessarily quick to do.
I do 100% understand and get the time constraints they hit due to the animations. I hate it as much as you guys do, but I understand it.
Honestly, if it tilted sideways or flapped its wings when turning on the overworld I'd have no problem with it. You can at least give us that it's jarring how it just flips 90 degrees, right?
Also I'm curious where you stand right now. Are you in the acceptance stage or do you think they might do post release patches? If the latter, do you still think gen 9 will be everyone is here?
I'm not asking because I think you "changed sides" or somethig people would accuse you of, just interested in your reading of the situation, and it is very sad I have to even state this. I may not always agree with you but you don't deserve the hate people give you in these threads.
I mean. No one asked for Dynamax and camping animations. Just do these to the galar mon and port the other models with patches. It's not some impossible task people are asking.
I think the main problem is what they prioritize and think the franchise is about. To me it's a collecting monster RPG, but they seem to care more about the gimmicks and think too much content overwhelms players (???).
I fell into acceptance the day after the bombshell dropped but haven't stopped using all avenues at my disposal to show the fan feelings (the fans that aren't being outright rude and offensive, or the ones that clearly don't understand game development) that this is a bad idea and could snowball. I will continue doing so. I will also continue to quash misinformation on both sides, but unfortunately it's mostly running rampant on the side of anti-Dexit. This does seem to make people think I'm defending Game Freak and this decision just because I'm stopping misinformation spreading which supports it.
I think they're probably exploring the possibility of post-release patches, perhaps in conjunction with the developments of the next game(s) so that there would at least be compatibility.
I do feel that the backlash has been enough for them to perhaps reconsider and expand this as a continual thing, but I can't say for sure. I am expecting SWSH2 or Gen 9 to have the "Everyone is here" moment
Despite this, I loved what I saw of SWSH at the Nintendo post-E3 event I attended and love how the game looks still. It still needs some polish (pop-in, textures etc.) but those are always the last thing that is done.
I mean hell we saw it with Let's Go.
30th May 2018
Launch
It also has happened with XY and Sun & Moon. People seem to forget that polish does happen with games. Most of the elements that people are complaining about will not be a problem at actual launch. This isn't Ubisoft or other devs where games get downgraded as launch approaches
I agree with camp but you shouldn't dismiss Dynamax. It's a vital new feature to the game and is a huge part of battles. I am 100% fine with them prioritising Dynamax
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Sucks
but I guess it is what it is then
On the bright side, if they'll pull a EVERYONE'S HERE for a future entry, that'd make for a fun trailer.
...
Hey, this is a completely random thought, but maybe this is a good excuse to bring back the Stadium series down the line too.
Mainline games can have their story cutscenes, new gimmicks and limited monsters (+ some new ones) that work with these gimmicks.
Stadium can then have just the basic fighting, but all monsters.
It's silly, but if they'd pull something like that I feel it'd make the lack of all monsters in Sword/Shield not as big of a deal for me.
but I guess it is what it is then
On the bright side, if they'll pull a EVERYONE'S HERE for a future entry, that'd make for a fun trailer.
...
Hey, this is a completely random thought, but maybe this is a good excuse to bring back the Stadium series down the line too.
Mainline games can have their story cutscenes, new gimmicks and limited monsters (+ some new ones) that work with these gimmicks.
Stadium can then have just the basic fighting, but all monsters.
It's silly, but if they'd pull something like that I feel it'd make the lack of all monsters in Sword/Shield not as big of a deal for me.
If we are judging barebones online, then we need to look at the latest games, and Let's Go online functions were shockingly abysmal.
You have to insert a 3 pokemon code to fight or trade with your friend (And best hope no one else is using the code you use). No Battle Spot, No GTS, They even axed Wonder Trade! And we have to pay for this online now! And that's before I bring up they didn't even include Hack Checks for these games.
I'm shocked more reviewers didn't point out how bad it was.
To quote someone more famous than I.
Sorry 'bout that Joe, at least the Y-Comm looks like it's got some more work into it than Let's Go did. Raids alone make it more interesting.
Now bring back Wonder Trade please.
I'm hardly a Ubisoft fan but that's not a fair thing to say. It happened with watch dogs but lately they are more honest about their graphics. If you are against pokemon misinformation spreading don't do the same with other companies
If we are judging barebones online, then we need to look at the latest games, and Let's Go online functions were shockingly abysmal.
You have to insert a 3 pokemon code to fight or trade with your friend (And best hope no one else is using the code you use). No Battle Spot, No GTS, They even axed Wonder Trade! And we have to pay for this online now! And that's before I bring up they didn't even include Hack Checks for these games.
I'm shocked more reviewers didn't point out how bad it was.
To quote someone more famous than I.
Sorry 'bout that Joe, at least the Y-Comm looks like it's got some more work into it than Let's Go did. Raids alone make it more interesting.
Now bring back Wonder Trade please.
Let's Go was crap, yes.
However when making an overall statement about Pokémon, choosing to ignore the prior games is a bit disingenuous
This doesn't add up for two reasons:
- They've said that they almost made the decision to cut the Pokemon during the development of Sun & Moon.
- They have committed to this being a 'policy change' in general where no future game will contain all of the Pokemon.
Based on everything they've said, this was a conscious decision that they almost made in like 2014, at a time they'd have even less justification for it.
Sun & Moon did add a lot of animations so I can see it.
As I have said, this becomes an exponential problem with each new generation.
The online has generally been good with pokemon games, Gen 4 was among the first of the online games on the DS and even had Voice Chat. Gen 5 added Random Matchups with the Global Battle Union, Gen 6 had the great PSS which easily lets you see when your friends are online playing as well and offer to help them out with O-Powers and initiate battles easily with them, as well as start Battle Spots which has basically become the online ranked standard for the series. And then Gen 7 sorta went backwards with Festival Plaza making it a lot more cumbersome to see when your friends were online, but to it's credit kept most of the online features intact and added new features like Rental Teams to use in battles if you scan the QR Codes, we then go to Let's Go which basically axed pretty much all the online features.
Y-Comm at least seems to be drawing inspiration from Gen 6 PSS UI design at least which is good, now the hope is all the SM/USUM Online features are in, maybe making Festival Plaza or whatever it's equivalent a seperate thing and not the mandatory thing you have to go to to fight someone at. Hopefully the trash online of Let's Go was a one time thing, I mean, if they are cutting a large number of the mons, they got more time to make sure the online is alright, right?
Different people work on it so that shouldn't factor in but all signs point to yes
Gamefreak is really lucky that it's not EA or Gearbox. If EA had announced a similar service like home and than the second announcement that home is not exactly what people are hoping for people would still be roasting EA.
This is what hits me the hardest, and makes this whole thing that much harder to swallow:
- They've known that this was an issue they would eventually have to address at least three years ago, very possibly a lot longer than that.
- They also know that the most controversial thing they could possibly do was remove backward compatibility and/or make some species unavailable, since the lack of Gen II to Gen III transfers and the decision to make BW 100% new species until the post-game led to Gen III and V becoming the two lowest selling generations, even if they've been re-evaluated as two of the best generations years later.
- They've specifically made massive efforts to ensure forwards-compatibility, starting with Bank and the introduction of origin markers with XY, the out-of-nowhere announcement that the Virtual Console titles would have Bank support, and now the hype they generated around Home as the modern solution prior to announcing Dexit.
It's a really hard choice to wrap my head around.
Japanese companies get saved from some flack because they have "star devs" at the front, while companies like EA are just seen as a corporation.
I do wonder what this means for breeding stuff. Obviously if Smeargle is gone, that's a lot of chains gone with it. Do you restrict egg moves just because that chain isn't possible in Sword and Shield now? Speaking of which, what about unique moves, do you do animations update for moves even if the pokemon isn't in? Do you cut the move entirely? Will Fire Lash be given to anyone other than Heatmor who may or may not even be in the game?
The franchise sells 15m+ units on a constant basis. I'm pretty sure they can find time and manpower to add animations. Also, not all Pokémon would need unique animations because some might be shared (as this already happens during battles).
So you either release a game where Pokémon move and behave like robots or release a game where the world feels actually alive. As a gamer I prefer the latter.
You can only Dynamax in certain areas though and we'll have to wait and see whether it is going to improve the battle system at all. I think it has the potential to make certain Pokémon completely broken.
Step 1: Use a boosting move like Dragon Dance, Quiver Dance, Tail Glow, etc.
Step 2: Dynamax (giving you an additional 50% boost to HP or possibly another stat).
Step 3: Spam Max Moves and destroy everything.
Combine this with an ability like Moxie and there's nothing the opponent can do, except use Max Guard to stall your Dynamax out.
But yeah, we don't know everything about this feature yet so it is too soon to really say anything about it. I'd rather have them focus on rebalancing some of the older Pokémon though. The battle system is already complex / interesting enough without extra gimmicks in my opinion.
Who says they aren't rebalancing older Pokémon? They have the last two gens with changes to base stats and abilities
I know it has been written many times but looking at some comments not knowing what pokemon is one might think pokemon is some small indie title.
Look at Judgement, a game made with a way smaller budget and you see a game that looks generations better than everything S&S has showed so far
Changing the abilities helps, but only adding +10 to certain base stats doesn't really do much. I'm talking about complete stat redistributions. But you're right that we do not know if they are already doing that.
However, my point still stands about Dynamax. Nobody asked for it and I think it has potential to break the game. The battle system is fine as it is. Use those resources on other things. (Like, you know, bringing back all the Pokémon..)
Dynamax increases a pokemon base HP by 50%. Other stats remain the same, this has been confirmed by several people who've played the SwSh demo.
Rebalancing will most likely happen, as it always does whenever we switch generations. For example, we've already had confirmation that the ability Moody is being changed/tuned in some way.
As to "how broken Dynamax will be?"... We'll have to wait and see, we can't be certain that it'll broken until we're able to test it in a multiplayer battle.
On paper, Dynamax looks more balanced than Megas since it only lasts for 3 turns and only boosts HP. Max moves are a different story, since we don't know how much of a BP increase they'll get. In the demo, max moves had between 120 and 140 BP, which isn't that high (at least compared to 200 BP z moves).
I feel very sad.
Pokémon Sapphire was the FIRST videogame I really wanted as a child, and I still remember the joy of playing it on Christmas.
Ever since that day I've played basically every new gen, remake and third version.
Some changes were controversial in the past, but I always liked them all for a reason or the other. Maybe I liked the meta, maybe the story and characters or maybe the sense of adventure.
Then Let's Go happened. Most of my favorite Pokémon completely erased. It was hard to swallow, but I looked forward to gen 8 to still have my Pokémon experience.
And then this happen. It feels like TPC stabbed me in the back honestly. My favorite gaming IP destroyed the main reason I played their games.
I pondered whatever cancelling my preorder or not since E3, but this statement sealed the deal.
I think I'm done with Pokémon, it's not the series I loved anymore and it looks like I won't ever have it back.
I talked with my brother today and he too made the same decision. After 15 years of playing the same games on D1 we will stop our annual tradition.
Pokémon Sapphire was the FIRST videogame I really wanted as a child, and I still remember the joy of playing it on Christmas.
Ever since that day I've played basically every new gen, remake and third version.
Some changes were controversial in the past, but I always liked them all for a reason or the other. Maybe I liked the meta, maybe the story and characters or maybe the sense of adventure.
Then Let's Go happened. Most of my favorite Pokémon completely erased. It was hard to swallow, but I looked forward to gen 8 to still have my Pokémon experience.
And then this happen. It feels like TPC stabbed me in the back honestly. My favorite gaming IP destroyed the main reason I played their games.
I pondered whatever cancelling my preorder or not since E3, but this statement sealed the deal.
I think I'm done with Pokémon, it's not the series I loved anymore and it looks like I won't ever have it back.
I talked with my brother today and he too made the same decision. After 15 years of playing the same games on D1 we will stop our annual tradition.
If the choice was either a stupid battle gimmick which doesn't even change the Pokemon's shape like Mega's did making it completely visually uninteresting or actually having all the pokemon then I think they picked the wrong one.
There's also a "Dynamax Level" which has an effect of which we aren't aware yet
But you are right, Dynamax is more balanced due to only lasting 3 turns which you can easily stall out.
I feel sad about the situation as well. Pokemon literally saved me when I went to school and had zero friends. After my brother left to Japan last year I was alone again and Pokémon Go did that same thing the games did when I was I child.
I met new people and doing raids I feel like I'm part of something. Together with Dragonball pokemon is really dear to me.
And now people on Twitter or Facebook are claiming you are not a fan if you are not going to buy Sword and Shield. It's ridiculous
I don't think I've ever seen a fanbase defending less content before, it's almost like the defenders are brainwashed.
Yep, I've been playing the series since I bought Pokémon Blue in '99 and I've bought every mainline game since then, including all the third versions and remake, but since I'm showing that I don't like the direction GameFreak is taking the franchise after Sword and Shield, I'm suddenly not a fan according to the defenders?
Since late November last year I've worked on getting a living Pokédex in Ultra Sun (which I've since completed) so I can transfer them all to Sword and Shield, but now all that work was for nothing because of their incompetence.
I'm sad too, and what makes me more sad is the people defending their garbage decisions, I'm pretty sure if Masuda took a shit on a plate they'd eat it without hesitation.
Yep, I've been playing the series since I bought Pokémon Blue in '99 and I've bought every mainline game since then, including all the third versions and remake, but since I'm showing that I don't like the direction GameFreak is taking the franchise after Sword and Shield, I'm suddenly not a fan according to the defenders?
Since late November last year I've worked on getting a living Pokédex in Ultra Sun (which I've since completed) so I can transfer them all to Sword and Shield, but now all that work was for nothing because of their incompetence.
I'm sad too, and what makes me more sad is the people defending their garbage decisions, I'm pretty sure if Masuda took a shit on a plate they'd eat it without hesitation.
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It's in the notoriously defensive fan's own best interest if GF actually has to step it up big time; they are the ones playing every damned title after all.
And the nice thing even is that GF and TPC have all the money in the world and therefore not a single fan needs worrying about these Pkm games somehow coming to an end if one or a few title bombs.
Just think of the slew of additional workplaces GF could create if they were finally scaling up their company to be anywhere near the juggernaut they should be!
Wins all over.
But one can also welcome the slow but certainly steady decline because one is a fan of a company and franchise brand, not of actually great games. I'll see you defending Blastoise hydro pump animations in a decade still...
And the nice thing even is that GF and TPC have all the money in the world and therefore not a single fan needs worrying about these Pkm games somehow coming to an end if one or a few title bombs.
Just think of the slew of additional workplaces GF could create if they were finally scaling up their company to be anywhere near the juggernaut they should be!
Wins all over.
But one can also welcome the slow but certainly steady decline because one is a fan of a company and franchise brand, not of actually great games. I'll see you defending Blastoise hydro pump animations in a decade still...
yeah, if not already Pokémon go will be the definitive Pokémon experience in a few years. Go/Showdown will be all you need, especially since the Go team seems invested in improving their game.
Literally no one is advocating crunch, so you can discard that strawman.
Yes, game development requires skill and expertise. Who knew. Luckily Game Freak has the resources to hire these skilled individuals, and there are no doubt hundreds in Japan that would jump at the chance to work on a mainline Pokemon game.
Well, see, there's these things called 'content patches' that exist nowadays that would allow them to add the Pokemon to the game after it's released, but Masuda stating that Pokemon not in Sword and Shield will appear in future games reads pretty plainly that they aren't even considering doing this.
Which is just insane.
This really is awful for the franchise going forward. I wish they would just give themselves more time and not feel the need to release a game every year. Take another year and add all the Pokémon and don't work yourself so hard that you become sick, it's just a video game.
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