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Over 1000 people are working on Pokémon Sword & Shield, twice as much as for Sun & Moon [SEE STAFF POST]
- Thread starter Deleted member 2791
- Start date
OP
OP
There's already a thousand people working on the game. Throwing more employees at every issue isn't a solution that works.
Oh I agree, but sadly it's something that has been used as a criticism ever since it's reveal.
That's...kind of incredible.
At that number wouldn't it be hard to keep track of what all's being done? Seems like a "too many cooks spoil the broth" type thing.
Though the game looks pretty decent. Skeptical, but its pretty and the 18 gyms thing was rad.
The PS3 is definitely weaker than the Switch
At that number wouldn't it be hard to keep track of what all's being done? Seems like a "too many cooks spoil the broth" type thing.
Though the game looks pretty decent. Skeptical, but its pretty and the 18 gyms thing was rad.
what
The PS3 is definitely weaker than the Switch
This doesn't make any sense. It's modeling and animating simple models, throwing more people at it should get the job done. Only real problem is if they can't afford them.
I don't really think it's a problem of 'not enough'. I don't know how large X and Y's team was, but it was probably smaller than or on par with this one, and they created over 700+ high-poly Pokemon models and animations because they prioritized bringing over all the Pokemon in 3D.
As much as people disagree, their priorities were different with this game. They're not going to do that sort of thing again, and judging by the recent interview, we can rule out a patch.
They don't want to, and do not think it's worth it going forwards. They aren't sat their wringing their hands because they're dying to include every single Pokémon but can't because of a lack of manpower- it's just not their vision for the series any more.
Let's not beat around the bush here.
I don't believe Gamefreak is involved in modeling and animating. I think that's all on Creatures Inc. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't really care anymore if all Pokemon aren't in SwSh. My only issue is the decision to keep it like this going forward. The lack of being able to transfer any Pokemon going forward for post game. Not like they hinder you enjoying new Pokemon during the initial journey.
OP
OP
It's not just creating more models. It's creating those models, animating them, debugging how each of them reacts with others including moves, overworld behaviour, all extra animations etc. So it's a big workload that isn't fixed just by hiring more animators, but a lot of people. It's already requiring this amount of people to work on what's currently planned, so adding even more would require a ton of people in multiple departments. And it has been decided that it'd be better to instead prioritze that workload on other ventures than having a full national dex.
It's definitely not because they (the TPC) can't afford it, although they still have a budget to follow.
Talented group of people! I bought a Switch recently and can't wait for Pokemon Sword (I don't know who Shield is).
My stance has always been that I would have been fine with a total reboot for the Pokedex (kinda like Black/White) because there are so many damn Pokemon. It's this weird middle ground approach that is offputting. But I get it. They aren't just gonna drop Pikachu and Charizard.
Modeling and animating models that then need:
Stats that scale up with level.
Moves and abilities with their own animation effects.
Balancing in the context of SwSh's gameplay systems.
Sound effects.
Writing and localization (for descriptions and other Pokemon-specific text)
QA
Among other work.
Putting together a model is just a part of developing a single Pokemon. "More modelers" doesn't solve the quandary of development time and resources from start to finish.
As far as I'm concerned, in a perfect world they'd shove gen 1 onto the back burner for a few years.
I mean, I guess I agree, but I wish they would reveal these things they are working on already. From the information I know about Sword and Shield, there are a lot of games made with smaller teams that had revealed by now much meatier and bigger amounts of content.
How would you solve this problem? Do you think it's impossible?
OP
OP
I do agree that I find them too secretive on the game's content compared to prior marketing campaigns.
I think adding Pokémon indefinitely was going to eventually become unsustainable, yes.
Didn't necessarily have to be now, but this was a sticking plaster they'd have to pull off at some point. I'd rather they do this than stopping adding Pokémon altogether.
Eventually all Pokemon will have proper models and animations working. All we can do is wait and hope they change their mind at some point. Or just accept this is the future now and have to deal with "This Pokemon doesn't deserve to be in over >insert Pokemon<" arguments. Fun times lie ahead.
There's a limit that GameFreak and other involved parties feel that they've hit. Adding and supporting more and more and more and more Pokemon every generation for perpetuity and maintaining a full roster in every game is unsustainable. The team had to draw a line in the sand somewhere if they wanted to keep a sizable roster without sacrificing the quality of the game for the sake of pure quantity.
It's ultimately disappointing that it's happening with their first flagship HD release.
I'm more disappointed that there won't be a patch, this means that there will most likely be trading restrictions between these and the upcoming Switch Pokemon games. Ah well.
Then I should have posted example of tailed pokemon like Onix or Gyrados, which were resized in Switch too and looks fine.
The trick here it's the same, in the "waiting for attacks" screen, which seems to be what concers you the more, they simply showcase the upper part of the their body, the rest goes offscreen.
When the pokemon attacks, then it can be be seen in its full glory. The camera zoom out properly.
Seriuosly, you 're the first one who I heard blaming this aspect in LGPE (or genius sonority old games.)
Do you think people have problems with alolan exeggutor with its head constantly offscreen, and would have rather him resized to be slightly taller version of the kantonian one.
So what's the deal with a wailord showing just a minimum part of himself in the waiting screen?
You're moving goalposts now.
I can also post shitty images of BotW if you want more cherry picking?
Again if you want to see subpar check out the Three Houses image that I posted in this thread.
How am I moving goalposts ? I said not only that Botw looks better but we also know that it's actually doing more things when it comes to environnement.
I believed he showed up in a commercial as well in Pokemon Camp.
Wailord's model is starting to show age.
You can only do so much by just adding shading and be compatible with lighting.
I wonder if we're going to get a new iteration of SwSh
For me it is kinda insane that Smash has around 90 characters. Like, how do they even pulled that off. It must have been a pain in the ass debugging how Jigglypuff's down B on Wii Fit Trainer crashed the game or something.
Imagine that but with 800+ creatures. It is a gargantuan effort, and you can only throw so many people at the game. As a programmer myself, I can only imagine the management nightmare this game is.
Imagine that but with 800+ creatures. It is a gargantuan effort, and you can only throw so many people at the game. As a programmer myself, I can only imagine the management nightmare this game is.
I know - but a legacy Pokemon that has been freshly added to 'Bow and Arrow' or 'Dyna Diamond and Giganta Pearl' cannot presumably be traded to Sword and Shield since the data for it would not exist (like if the Sinnoh starters were cut but added back in with the remakes) . On the bright side, the other way around might work.
It uses a different engine with different design priorities.
Of course it does. But it doesn't change the fact that Pokemon's overworld looks barren, more simple with lower quality assets.
Yeah but not by that much. I reckon you could port, say, Smash Bros Ultimate to PS3 and not lose much.
A fighting game isn't remotely comparable to a static turn based RPG.
I mean, I'm not blaming the lack of the national dex on the number of people. The national dex was decided before the people got on board and hired. That's an executive decision and would have been whether they hired 1 person or 1 million.
Just because it is turn based doesnt meant there arent things going on
Smash is a physics based platform fighter, with about a metric ton of character moves, stages, items, assist trophies, final smashes, etc, and all with unique effects and characteristics.
Of course there's "things going on" in Pokemon, but there are far more variables involved with adding a fighter to Smash than there is with adding a new Pokémon.
And so many others
This looks great for a Pokemon game.
I'm honestly not sure what some people are expecting, I would imagine if most of people here were on my friends list that said they are boycotting the game i would still see them playing on it on release and we are just jumping on the hate bandwagon because it's the current cool thing to do.
It's apparently not "on par" with the system's capabilities. Whatever that means. As if every game had to be pushing their main platform's hardware.
Or if there is a lack of talent (I assume Japanese is a prerequisite, things would get too crazy if Gamefreak outsources work to non-Japanese-speaking firms, I'd imagine)
When it comes to modelling/animation, assuming the animation/art/whatever the title is director of that has established proper rules and a pipeline, throwing more people on it is the solution. And the fact that they had hundreds of outsourced/external partners points to that being what they did
I'm sorry is this question has already been asked, but where those developpers come from? Game Freak is only a small studio (at least according to Wikipedia).
The bar is "so low" because their previous game was on 3DS. The next gen too will look better than SWSH. That's how things work.
I was pretty vocally upset when they first revealed that the game wouldn't have every Pokemon available, but it's become increasingly obvious that it wasn't out of "laziness" or anything. The progress they've made with such a short dev cycle and jump from 3DS to Switch is impressive in many ways. Every company and development team works differently so comparing something like this to The Witcher or a fighting game doesn't really make a lot of sense. That said I do hope they cut back on the yearly releases so they can use their hard work to make games with the full dex again, but SwSh not having it is something that has settled in for me and isn't really all that bad.
I'm sorry but that only gets you raw models and animations, what about:
- setting up processes for each external/onboarding new staff, vetting external/hiring people, speccing work , tracking it, managing it, handling feedback
- designing the content (micro and macro level for gameplay, then balance, world content design to mention few, all of which all touch different design discplines and in many very vertical/hierarchical studios that means a lot of scheduling conflcits)
- managing asset size allocating budget, optimization strategy depending on what the end content target is
- implementing the content
- validating the content
- optimizing/iterating the content
- other
- managing and directing all of the above
I completely understand why most people have the position they have, but it's very rare for most problems in game development to be solvable with just money, one of the obvious reasons being that hiring some key positions take easily 6-12 months, and it's rare for many aspects of the end product not to touch a huge, vertical slice of the team organization so just hiring "grunt work" ultimately can quickly lead to senior level people being overworked leading to the entire flow to being bottle-necked and the content then being cut anyway to meet deadlines.
