Pre-Release Pokémon Scarlet and Violet — Pre-release Discussion Thread (UPDATE: new trailer, see threadmarks)

[Sheldon]

The controversies were about debit, many had and some still do, that you had to get the dlc in order to get the returning Pokemon.
Also that people felt SwSh was unfinished and was locking content behind a pay wall.

That makes no sense. The moment Dexit was announced, having to pay to get returning Pokemon was a reality, whether those Pokemon returned in a third version, DLC or a future generation entry. And the parts of SwSh that felt unfinished made no appearance in the Isle of Armor or Crown Tundra expansions.

 

[EddyZacianLand]

That makes no sense. The moment Dexit was announced, having to pay to get returning Pokemon was a reality, whether those Pokemon returned in a third version, DLC or a future generation entry. And the parts of SwSh that felt unfinished made no appearance in the Isle of Armor or Crown Tundra expansions.

Many people thought that both DLC were finished at the time SwSh was released and gamefreak just held both back.

 

[ILikeFeet]

I mean, GF has done that since Gen 1, you just had to buy a full priced game.

 

[Sheldon]

Many people thought that both DLC were finished at the time SwSh was released and gamefreak just held both back.

That's a stupid thought. What did Game Freak work on during the 11 months between the releases of Sword & Shield and Crown Tundra when no one was busy on DLC according to those many people?

 

[Mediking]

I think the games look great and full of content

 

[Hauke_von_Arding]

The controversies were about debit, many had and some still do, that you had to get the dlc in order to get the returning Pokemon.
Also that people felt SwSh was unfinished and was locking content behind a pay wall.

You could trade/use bank to get the DLC mons, you didn't even need to pay to get them (only to catch them, but really? You ALLWAYS need to pay to catch pokemon, be it a game or dlc)

 

[Lelouch0612]

The controversies were about debit, many had and some still do, that you had to get the dlc in order to get the returning Pokemon.
Also that people felt SwSh was unfinished and was locking content behind a pay wall.

You didn't, you could trade them to Sw/Sh even without buying the DLC.

 

[DittoM]

I got tired of waiting for Scarlet and Violet and Legends didn’t really scratch the Pokémon itch so I’m playing Sword again. Really weird to think that this is most likely the last game in this style. I for one welcome an open world future but I will miss the pseudo top-down nature of gens 7 and 8.

 

[SammyJ9]

I hope they make use of the space and have a bunch of caves, forests and hidden areas to find Pokemon in, that's the least they can do with this sort of game. If it's mostly open fields and mountains I'd be disappointed and consider the whole open world angle to be a waste.

I do worry that they will treat finding all the different terrastalized pokemon versions as "cool rewards" for hidden places. I'm not against that in general, but if there are THAT many different types of terrastalizing for all pokemon and that's the only thing you get for finding a cool spot somewhere in the map it's going to get really old really fast.

 

[ILikeFeet]

watched the JP trailer and it's definitely smoother, but other things I noticed are some very low draw distances. like literally feet/meters in front of you, shit's popping in. shadow draw distance is longer but still pretty bad when you have shadows popping in for large objects like the titans. environment textures are ass, though that not new. I've said it before, but it feels like a tools issue at this point. like their engine just can't extract performance out of the switch. has any datamine shown if the engine bears much resemblance to their 3DS engine?

also noticed you can change your pupil color, so that's cool

 

[Pokemaniac]

watched the JP trailer and it's definitely smoother, but other things I noticed are some very low draw distances. like literally feet/meters in front of you, shit's popping in. shadow draw distance is longer but still pretty bad when you have shadows popping in for large objects like the titans. environment textures are ass, though that not new. I've said it before, but it feels like a tools issue at this point. like their engine just can't extract performance out of the switch. has any datamine shown if the engine bears much resemblance to their 3DS engine?

also noticed you can change your pupil color, so that's cool

It's not entirely clear if Arceus continued the tradition, but Game Freak's engine typically has some data in it going all the way back to the GBA. It's almost certainly the same codebase, but you'd probably have to talk to one of the actual dataminer for specifics.

 

[Tye]

Do we know if trainer customization is still gender-locked or not? I wasn’t entirely sure with what they showed in the last trailer, but I haven’t exactly gone back to analyze it either.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Do we know if trainer customization is still gender-locked or not? I wasn’t entirely sure with what they showed in the last trailer, but I haven’t exactly gone back to analyze it either.

clothing is unknown (but looks to be gender neutral going by the trailer), but head customization looks to be gender neutral

It's not entirely clear if Arceus continued the tradition, but Game Freak's engine typically has some data in it going all the way back to the GBA. It's almost certainly the same codebase, but you'd probably have to talk to one of the actual dataminer for specifics.

yea, I remember the item data stuff. any rendering related stuff I remember hearing about has just been hearsay from places like 4chan's vp, so it's not reputable at all

 

[Tye]

clothing is unknown (but looks to be gender neutral going by the trailer), but head customization looks to be gender neutral

Fucking finally!! Ridiculous that it took them this long, but it’s great to see. Now hopefully they don’t just go back on it with the next game…

 

[SammyJ9]

The head customizations look great, but I wish they’d show off the clothes a bit more - I’m not a huge fan of the university uniform look, so I want to know if we can wear something different at any point

 

[ILikeFeet]

The head customizations look great, but I wish they’d show off the clothes a bit more - I’m not a huge fan of the university uniform look, so I want to know if we can wear something different at any point

one thing I heard was there was various styles of school uniform rather than street/formal/whatever-wear. don't know if that's true

previous customization trailers shown off outfits, so either SV will get one more trailer showing that, or they're emphasizing faces this gen more

 

[SammyJ9]

Just realized this game is out in less than six weeks - dang, that’s quick. Probably be one more big trailer, near the end of the month? Or they might just do an overview trailer, and maybe one more “new Pokémon” event of some sort

 

[Tye]

The head customizations look great, but I wish they’d show off the clothes a bit more - I’m not a huge fan of the university uniform look, so I want to know if we can wear something different at any point

Same here; I’m kinda worried that these school uniforms are the only variety of outfits that we’re gonna get, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was TPC/GF’s justification for finally making trainer customization gender-neutral in the first place—and if that’s the case I worry about it just being removed with the next games when the trainers presumably won’t have uniforms like that. =/

 

[zumaddy]

If I remember correctly one leak said uniforms only in relation to character customization.

 

[EddyZacianLand]

You didn't, you could trade them to Sw/Sh even without buying the DLC.

You could trade/use bank to get the DLC mons, you didn't even need to pay to get them (only to catch them, but really? You ALLWAYS need to pay to catch pokemon, be it a game or dlc)

I know that, but many people still think that you do and I bet it will be the same for SV

 

[SammyJ9]

If I remember correctly one leak said uniforms only in relation to character customization.

I found that leak source just a bit ago, and yeah it says:

Spoiler: Minor spoilers

It’s all uniforms of various types. And there aren’t any dresses or skirts, which sucks. According to the leak the reasoning was there’s a mirror/upside-down bit in a gym or something and they assumed they were worried about upskirts. Which… okay, fair, but can’t you just code in black voids or something? Seems a touch overboard to completely exclude them from the entire game.

Of course that may not be entirely accurate, we’ll see soon enough.

 

[Link_enfant]

I found that leak source just a bit ago, and yeah it says:

Spoiler: Minor spoilers

It’s all uniforms of various types. And there aren’t any dresses or skirts, which sucks. According to the leak the reasoning was there’s a mirror/upside-down bit in a gym or something and they assumed they were worried about upskirts. Which… okay, fair, but can’t you just code in black voids or something? Seems a touch overboard to completely exclude them from the entire game.

Of course that may not be entirely accurate, we’ll see soon enough.

Could also be a good excuse to say "we finally made clothing gender neutral!" but no way to have a skirt or dress on a male trainer by completely removing a category of clothes :/
Hopefully that's not exactly the case but I wouldn't be very surprised if it is, sadly.

 

[Chaotic Neutral]

I really, really wish they'd allow SOME form of difficulty. I know people are probably tired of hearing it by now, but ugh, screw mandatory exp share :/

As someone who is a fan of modern Pokémon games just as much as the classics, I can echo the sentiment on forced Exp. Share completely. I would like the option of having it as a held item like it was.

Do you think SV having DLC will be as controversial as SwSh having DLC?

No. I think most people also saw Isle of Armour and Crown Tundra (both excellent additions btw) as a better value proposition than a full-priced Pokémon Gun or whatever.

Do we know if trainer customization is still gender-locked or not? I wasn’t entirely sure with what they showed in the last trailer, but I haven’t exactly gone back to analyze it either.

That trailer looked to me like gender-locked character customisation was over. But like others have pointed out, we don’t know much about the clothes yet.

Just realized this game is out in less than six weeks - dang, that’s quick. Probably be one more big trailer, near the end of the month? Or they might just do an overview trailer, and maybe one more “new Pokémon” event of some sort

Tbh at this point I almost don’t want to know anymore before starting. Kind of wish I hadn’t read most of the leaks this summer.

 

[BlightStar]

The difficulty, or lack thereof, is probably the biggest annoyance for me with these games, especially these days. No matter what I did, I could not make SwordShield or so, actually difficult. Or, I do not even want the games to be 'hard'. But they are not fun when you are literally showered in mandatory EX to make you 10 levels above the next gym
People always rebuttal that 'well grinding is not a good game mechanic!' and yeah, true, but I rarely did have to 'grind' in the older games. I was usually at a pretty good level to have a manageable yet challenging time, and IF I was where I was a bit too weak or had a poor team, then I could grind for a little bit and boom, on the path again.
But having to do convoluted self-made rules and such just to not button-spam my way through the game, is not fun
I would not have nearly as big an issue with the poor graphics of odd design choices, if the game was still 'fun', but, combined, it just makes the Pkmn games so... boring, lately.
We'll of course have to see how Scarlet and Violet is.
But I do not have much faith in the game being balanced

 

[ILikeFeet]

Everyone keeps saying "exp share" as if it's an instant hard button, but these games are fundamentally designed to be easy. They always have been but it's gotten worse now that layers of abstraction has been removed. Traversal and exploration has been stripped away until the games became a railroaded sequence of easy battles with no down time between them. The fights themselves are overly reliant on the type match-up with few twists.

 

[BlightStar]

Yeah, that too. I think people mostly focus on Exp Share since it is the most in-your-face thing, combined with how it used to be Optional
But, the games just do not feel like an adventure anymore, which is ironic since that is what they try to promote. Being 'your very own adventure'.
But it really just feels like a Amusement park where there are people spamming "Let's love Pokémon together! Lemme heal your time" all the time.
I actuvely miss getting lost in a difficult cave not knowing where I am. Sure, it is frustrating in the moment. But I prefer it over how things are now.
I still enjoy the games. But they just feel so... I dunno. All over the place.

 

[Tym]

The difficulty, or lack thereof, is probably the biggest annoyance for me with these games, especially these days. No matter what I did, I could not make SwordShield or so, actually difficult. Or, I do not even want the games to be 'hard'. But they are not fun when you are literally showered in mandatory EX to make you 10 levels above the next gym
People always rebuttal that 'well grinding is not a good game mechanic!' and yeah, true, but I rarely did have to 'grind' in the older games. I was usually at a pretty good level to have a manageable yet challenging time, and IF I was where I was a bit too weak or had a poor team, then I could grind for a little bit and boom, on the path again.
But having to do convoluted self-made rules and such just to not button-spam my way through the game, is not fun
I would not have nearly as big an issue with the poor graphics of odd design choices, if the game was still 'fun', but, combined, it just makes the Pkmn games so... boring, lately.
We'll of course have to see how Scarlet and Violet is.
But I do not have much faith in the game being balanced

I'm personally hoping that the separate routes might help mitigate over leveling a bit, depending on how the level scaling ends up working.

My plan's to either focus on one route per run through, or use a separate team for each route.

Still awkward to have to use self imposed rules, but hopefully should give a decent difficulty.

 

[BlightStar]

I'm personally hoping that the separate routes might help mitigate over leveling a bit, depending on how the level scaling ends up working.

My plan's to either focus on one route per run through, or use a separate team for each route.

Still awkward to have to use self imposed rules, but hopefully should give a decent difficulty.

Yeah I am VERY curious to see it they will try to keep those 3 routes, like, balanced alongside eachother. I do not see how they could, if you can just go do whatever you want, whenever you want. I feel they have to have some scaling, or else you, yeah, have to either do one route each playtrhough, or get a new team, or just button-mash through the other two.

Still hyped for the games! But, very worried about how this is going to work. Leveling up should be a yay moment, not a nay moment XD

 

[ILikeFeet]

I still maintain that normalized levels and maximum pokemon caps are the best way to induce a challenge. they already do it VGC, do the same for single player

 

[Leica]

I still maintain that normalized levels and maximum pokemon caps are the best way to induce a challenge. they already do it VGC, do the same for single player

The difficult Nuzlocke romhacks and the like also have level caps, it's pretty much required if you want an actual challenging mode but it should be definitely be a mode you select by choice, imposing it on everyone who plays would be a real bad decision.

 

[ILikeFeet]

The difficult Nuzlocke romhacks and the like also have level caps, it's pretty much required if you want an actual challenging mode but it should be definitely be a mode you select by choice, imposing it on everyone who plays would be a real bad decision.

once again, Dragon Quest solved all the problems Pokemon has

 

[Bonejack]

I'd argue a simple "Normal or Hardmode" toggle at the start of the game would be enough. Slap some levels on enemy trainers / gym leaders, have them do more than "Growl" for n-th times and call it a day.

 

[Paxie]

Yeah I am VERY curious to see it they will try to keep those 3 routes, like, balanced alongside eachother. I do not see how they could, if you can just go do whatever you want, whenever you want. I feel they have to have some scaling, or else you, yeah, have to either do one route each playtrhough, or get a new team, or just button-mash through the other two.

Still hyped for the games! But, very worried about how this is going to work. Leveling up should be a yay moment, not a nay moment XD

Tbh, I think people are really overestimating how much the 3 stories structure changes things. Going by the marketing there's still going to be an intended sequence - they want people to go Klawf Titan -> Brassius -> Schedar Squad. That's just the usual Pokemon loop of having region exploration and Team stuff between the gym badges, except they removed all instances of railroading.

I still maintain that normalized levels and maximum pokemon caps are the best way to induce a challenge. they already do it VGC, do the same for single player

Interestingly, they've actually started doing the latter with the main-story, you can't bring more than 3 Pokemon into Team Star base. They seem to give you your full team back for the admin fight, but that could be an error?

 

[BlightStar]

Tbh, I think people are really overestimating how much the 3 stories structure changes things. Going by the marketing there's still going to be an intended sequence - they want people to go Klawf Titan -> Brassius -> Schedar Squad. That's just the usual Pokemon loop of having region exploration and Team stuff between the gym badges, except they removed all instances of railroading.


Interestingly, they've actually started doing the latter with the main-story, you can't bring more than 3 Pokemon into Team Star base. They seem to give you your full team back for the admin fight, but that could be an error?

If there is a fully 'intended' parth that merges all three Main Paths, then I kinda hope they make it always clear what you should do.
I DO want actual adventure of searching for stuff, but I am willing to sacrefice it for a more balanced experience, heh.
But yeah that is good at least, if that is how the structure will indeed work.

 

[meatbag]

once again, Dragon Quest solved all the problems Pokemon has

Seriously, difficulty modifiers are the way to go.

But hey I will never expect Game Freak to give us that.

 

[Apopheniac]

The head customizations look great, but I wish they’d show off the clothes a bit more - I’m not a huge fan of the university uniform look, so I want to know if we can wear something different at any point

one thing I heard was there was various styles of school uniform rather than street/formal/whatever-wear. don't know if that's true

previous customization trailers shown off outfits, so either SV will get one more trailer showing that, or they're emphasizing faces this gen more

If I remember correctly one leak said uniforms only in relation to character customization.

they mentioned this on the official site a while back

Use all sorts of items to make your uniform fit you​

Ranging from short sleeves and shorts to warm blazers, the academy has four different kinds of uniforms in total. Additionally, you can collect a wide variety of accessories from boutiques. Wear your favorite items and try out different styles along the way on your adventure!

 

[Yavga]

I don't like to complain but yeah, still ignoring your biggest flaws after developing years worth of Pokémon games feels odd, to the point I don't really understand anymore why people still attempt to defend these kind of choices.

I still ask why though, why do they knowingly choose to ignore such features? I can understand that they want to appeal to a younger audience with their difficulty but ignoring the challenging aspect of your games altogether...

Are there some kind of feedback models that they use which steers them this direction or is it really just ignorance?

 

[BlightStar]

It feels, to me, that they are SO terrified still, if kids having any kind of roadblock, cuz then they will 'go back to their phone and ignore Pokémon'.
And if that is still the main reason they are so extremely against any kind of option in their games, then that is... very stupid.
Kids can handle roadblocks. You say you want people to forge their own adventure. Sure, that is nice. But you kinda do not really do that.
Kids can handle Minecraft and junk, they can handle being lost for a few minutes, or get beaten by someone powerful.
I feel like it is way higher risk kids would lose interest from the complete lack of obstacles, vs losing a few times. But I dunno.
All that could be saved if they just gave some difficult option, have it turned to easy by default or make it tedious to find so kids cannot click it by mistake, I don't care, just let me have some form of challenge without forcing me to ignore 90% of all the features of the game -w-

 

[Lelouch0612]

once again, Dragon Quest solved all the problems Pokemon has

DQXI launched without those in Japan and were included in the Western release to fit with tastes abroad. It was not really balanced correctly either.

I believe the Exp share debate is misguided indeed and should be focused on more difficulty settings. The feedback would have more chance to be taken into account that way.

Only way to resolve the "giving more freedom / tightening the leveling curve" dilemna.

 

[Reinhard Schneider]

I miss the way more polished and cohesive

The 2D games were held by strings tho. They looked cohesive, but they would break with very little fiddling.

At this point in time i'm not surprised by the negativity, if anything, It tires me. Why people always expects the unthinkable from Gamefreak when they have never been a tech powerhouse is something that escapes my understanding, and well... It just feels tiresome to speak about the rest.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Interestingly, they've actually started doing the latter with the main-story, you can't bring more than 3 Pokemon into Team Star base. They seem to give you your full team back for the admin fight, but that could be an error?

definitely not an error, otherwise it wouldn't have survived this long

DQXI launched without those in Japan and were included in the Western release to fit with tastes abroad. It was not really balanced correctly either.

I believe the Exp share debate is misguided indeed and should be focused on more difficulty settings. The feedback would have more chance to be taken into account that way.

Only way to resolve the "giving more freedom / tightening the leveling curve" dilemna.

draconian quests were added with the Switch version I thought.

 

[BlightStar]

The 2D games were held by strings tho. They looked cohesive, but they would break with very little fiddling.

At this point in time i'm not surprised by the negativity, if anything, It tires me. Why people always expects the unthinkable from Gamefreak when they have never been a tech powerhouse is something that escapes my understanding, and well... It just feels tiresome to speak about the rest.

The 2D Games always felt way more cohesive, and prettier, to me. I feel a lot of my issues arose from it going 3D with XY.
I do not need the games to look god-tier, and I do not need the games to be 'Souls Hard', but to me, most major aspects of the games feels worse nowadays. I can excuse bad graphics if the game is still fun. I value gameplay more. But to me, the games lately are both too easy, with no non-intrusive options to change it, while also looking so... hm. I thin incohesive is my biggest issue. It just feels like, since SwordShield at least, characters and world and effects and models, do not mesh well. At least not to me.
The scope of their games keeps getting bigger, with open worlds and junk, but it just does not look 'nice' to me. It looks like something is wrong. And since both the graphics, and the gameplay, is pretty bad, to me, it is hard to not be a bit negative, since I DO love Pokémon.
I also do understand why a lot of these issues exists, they are not a gigantic company, and I am not gonna go 'lazy devs' or anything, but the games just feels uncofused.
But that's just me. I dunno.

 

[Paxie]

It feels, to me, that they are SO terrified still, if kids having any kind of roadblock, cuz then they will 'go back to their phone and ignore Pokémon'.
And if that is still the main reason they are so extremely against any kind of option in their games, then that is... very stupid.
Kids can handle roadblocks. You say you want people to forge their own adventure. Sure, that is nice. But you kinda do not really do that.
Kids can handle Minecraft and junk, they can handle being lost for a few minutes, or get beaten by someone powerful.
I feel like it is way higher risk kids would lose interest from the complete lack of obstacles, vs losing a few times. But I dunno.
All that could be saved if they just gave some difficult option, have it turned to easy by default or make it tedious to find so kids cannot click it by mistake, I don't care, just let me have some form of challenge without forcing me to ignore 90% of all the features of the game -w-

There's another thing that bothers me - given the demographic metrics put out for the Switch last year, I don't even think kids are the main audience playing the games anymore, it's (young) adults. While kids are important, the majority of people pushing discussion online and more importantly actually interfacing with the games are much older than GF wants to admit and the game design has refused to shift accordingly. Of course this doesn't account for kids using adult accounts and such, but I think that is less significant given that the series sells 15+ million copies every new gen.

 

[Lelouch0612]

definitely not an error, otherwise it wouldn't have survived this long


draconian quests were added with the Switch version I thought.

They were already there on the Western vanilla release.

Their first appearance in Japan was when the Switch version launched however.

 

[ILikeFeet]

The 2D Games always felt way more cohesive, and prettier, to me. I feel a lot of my issues arose from it going 3D with XY.
I do not need the games to look god-tier, and I do not need the games to be 'Souls Hard', but to me, most major aspects of the games feels worse nowadays. I can excuse bad graphics if the game is still fun. I value gameplay more. But to me, the games lately are both too easy, with no non-intrusive options to change it, while also looking so... hm. I thin incohesive is my biggest issue. It just feels like, since SwordShield at least, characters and world and effects and models, do not mesh well. At least not to me.
The scope of their games keeps getting bigger, with open worlds and junk, but it just does not look 'nice' to me. It looks like something is wrong. And since both the graphics, and the gameplay, is pretty bad, to me, it is hard to not be a bit negative, since I DO love Pokémon.
I also do understand why a lot of these issues exists, they are not a gigantic company, and I am not gonna go 'lazy devs' or anything, but the games just feels uncofused.
But that's just me. I dunno.

when you reduce the amount of abstraction, you have to increase the amount of work to make the game look fleshed out. straight up translating 2D design to 3D really shows how barren the games actually are. Let's Go mitigated that by retaining the camera, but it was starting to get stretched thin.

feels like Alpha Dream in a way, but with a more valuable IP to their name

 

[BlightStar]

when you reduce the amount of abstraction, you have to increase the amount of work to make the game look fleshed out. straight up translating 2D design to 3D really shows how barren the games actually are. Let's Go mitigated that by retaining the camera, but it was starting to get stretched thin.

feels like Alpha Dream in a way, but with a more valuable IP to their name

Yeah, I think, they often turn out feeling like '2D games but in 3D' in how they go about stuff. Let's Go, in hindsight, is actually quite pretty and nice. I just did not care for the capture-mechanic of it.
There's just so many things, individually, that bugs me with the games (also stuff like voice acting. Not all games need it, but when cutscenes acts as if there is talking going on, it just feels off. At LEAST do Zelda-like grunts, that would solve so much).

@Paxie
That too, yeah. I get they wanna market stuff for kids, but yeah there are so many adults who play, too, and their desires feels often ignored, other than, I guess, the competetive aspect.

 

[Deleted member 2]

Many people thought that both DLC were finished at the time SwSh was released and gamefreak just held both back.

I don't remember this at all.

 

[EddyZacianLand]

I don't remember this at all.

These were people I saw on twitter

 

[Deleted member 341]

These were people I saw on twitter

I saw the same discussions when Nintendo announced the BotW DLC.

For some it is really hard to comprehend that DLC is in its planning stages before a game launches.

I don't even know whats so bad about announcing long term plans for your game. It is not like they cut the features out.

Theoretically I could understand the backlash against DLC announcements before or shorty after launch if a game seems glued together or the content seems to be barebones at best but thats at least for singleplayer games from Nintendo and its partners hardly a problem imo.

 

[EddyZacianLand]

I saw the same discussions when Nintendo announced the BotW DLC.

For some it is really hard to comprehend that DLC is in its planning stages before a game launches.

I don't even know whats so bad about announcing long term plans for your game. It is not like they cut the features out.

Theoretically I could understand the backlash against DLC announcements before or shorty after launch if a game seems glued together or the content seems to be barebones at best but thats at least for singleplayer games from Nintendo and its partners hardly a problem imo.

Well that's what many people thought about SwSh, so.